


Flashpoint

by penlex



Series: telerevision [1]
Category: DCU, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Betrayal, Bigotry & Prejudice, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Gay Character, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heroes to Villains, Hostage Situations, Loss, M/M, Minor Character Death, Organized Crime, Paradox, Romance, Season/Series 03, Time Travel, Undercover, Unreliable Narrator, Villains to Heroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-01-08 08:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12251151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penlex/pseuds/penlex
Summary: Barry Allen runs back in time, creating the Flashpoint Paradox. At first everything seems perfect, but slowly Barry starts to realize that things in the Paradox might just be worse than they were before - but what caused everything to go so wrong when the only change Barry made was to save his mother's life? In the midst of navigating an epic meta turf war and hunting down the escaped Eobard Thawne, Barry finally learns to deal with his grief and accept the things he cannot change.DCAU Flashpoint Paradox meets DCTV setting and characters. An alternate Flash season 3.





	1. 3.01 "Flashpoint"

**Author's Note:**

> This fic draws from the DCAU movie "Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox" and many plot points and character roles are inspired by it and adapted to fit the DCTV universe. I strongly recommend it.
> 
> I deliberately left some minor plotholes, missing scenes, subtext, non-"canon" shipping potential, etc etc, to make this as much like an actual show as possible. If at any point anyone wants to fill any of those spaces absolutely go for it and I'll cry and probably worship you.
> 
> You may notice the chapter total says 13 instead of 23. That's me having reasonable expectations of myself. So we get a British season or a summer season instead of a full length American season.
> 
> Also, won't strictly be relevant, but in my "canon" Wally got his speed powers when Jesse did ~~like he should have~~.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry has the perfect life, but something isn't right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guest appearances: Ki Hong Lee as "casually dressed man" and Kat Blaque as "blue haired woman"

**_Previously on The Flash:_ **

_Eobard Thawne, The Reverse Flash, murders Nora Allen and Henry Allen is convicted of the crime, spending most of his son's life as an innocent man in prison._

_During a singularity caused by the paradox collapsing due to Thawne's ancestor, Eddie, killing himself, Barry travels back in time to attempt to prevent the paradox from forming in the first place by saving his mother, but is prevented from doing so by a future version of himself._

_When Thawne, as Harrison Wells, posthumously confesses Henry is set free to reunite with Barry._

_Hunter Zolomon a.k.a. Zoom, a false Flash and his own villain on an alternate Earth, travels to Earth-1 and torments Barry, seeking to steal his speed. He is defeated, but not before he murders Henry._

_"You waited for me for years," Iris tells Barry on the West porch after his father's funeral. "I am gonna do the same thing for you. Wherever you need to go, whatever you need to do, do it. And when you get back, I'll be here." For the first time in their timeline and on their Earth, Barry and Iris kiss, and exchange romantic 'I love you's._

_After Iris goes inside, rejoining Joe and Wally, her family, family Barry feels like he no longer has after losing the father he just got back, Barry apologizes to her for doing what he's about to - and runs back in time to the night Eobard Thawne murdered his mother to stop him after all. He sees his younger self there, who had traveled here from the singularity, and smiles in relief as that version of himself ceases to exist._

 

* * *

 

Barry doesn't waste any time. His jaw and his fists are clenched so hard he hurts all over, his eyes are dry, his throat tight, and his stomach is rolling, but he thinks he has never felt so sure of anything in his life. He wants this more than anything; he deserves it. And just as much, Thawne deserves to have this victory taken away from him. He deserves to have everything taken away, like Barry has, and worse.

The lightning swirls around him, the Speedforce buzzing through his body and out and all through the room. Barry hears it crackling, but distantly. He's been here so many times now, in time travel, in memories, in nightmares, that the background noises are like an old familiar song playing over a radio set down low. His mother sits on the floor, confused and terrified, her eyes too slow to track them.

Barry is going to save her this time. Screw the rules and screw his future self, he wants the happy past he could have had, he wants a happy present.

Thawne starts to go for her, but Barry is ready. He grabs the villain by the back of his hideous yellow suit and yanks as hard as he can. There's a choking sound as Thawne comes up against his own momentum, and Barry thinks viciously - _good_. He pulls Thawne around, so ready for the fight, his heart racing, almost excited. Thawne deserves this; they both deserve this so much.

Thawne's eyes behind his ugly mask are wide with shock, and Barry thinks again - _good_. He wants this disgusting man shocked. He wants him terrified. He wants him to suffer. He wants to be the one to make him.

Out on the street - so that Barry's mother doesn't have to see, he doesn't want her to be scared anymore, not ever again - Barry punches Thawne in the side of his face as hard as he can with so little space to build up momentum. The hit makes a sound, a loud one - a dull, satisfying thud of bone against bone. The silence in Barry's earpiece lets it repeat over and over in Barry's mind, and he thinks - _good good good_.

"What-" Thawne gasps. His mouth is bleeding, bruise on his cheek already forming. Barry hopes he hit him hard enough that it won't heal too fast. "What are you doing?"

"What do you think?" Barry snarls. His voice comes out unrecognizable, but he doesn't care. He hits Thawne again, even though Thawne hasn't hit him back or tried to escape. He doesn't care. Thawne takes the hit, his eyes still wide for a second more, until he starts laughing. Barry hates him so much, he's sick to his stomach, and hits him again.

"You'll regret this, Flash," Thawne says through his laughter. He sounds so smug. He's always so smug. But Barry doesn't care. He doesn't care! He hits Thawne again, as hard as he can, and again.

He deserves it.

When Thawne is limp in his hands, Barry goes back inside. His mother is still on the floor, crying quietly.

"It's okay now," Barry tells her softly, falling down on his knees beside her. "You're going to be okay now." She wipes her eyes slowly, peering at him warily.

"What's going on?" she asks, her voice thick and wobbly. Barry makes comforting noises in his throat automatically, reaching out one gentle hand to lay comfortingly on her shoulder, steadying for both of them. "Who are you?"

"Nobody," says Barry. "It doesn't matter anymore. Everything's better now."

Henry comes down the stairs not seconds later. Their living room is nearly destroyed, things thrown everywhere, the windows broken. His wife and his young son sit in the middle, windswept and crying and clinging to each other, but both of them alive.

...

A soft warmth falls across Barry's face, gently rousing him from his light sleep. He has the distinct impression that he dreamed, but he can't remember about what so he puts it easily out of his mind. He waits a minute before opening his eyes, relaxing in the sunbeam that woke him like a lazy cat. He listens to the quiet busy noises coming from the next room, dishes moving around, a knife on a wooden cutting board, the tiny murmurs of something on a little TV, someone humming, and from the other direction the delicate tinkle of wind chimes through the cracked open window. Barry takes a deep breath as he finally flutters his eyes open, a nice big lungful of fabric softener and fresh coffee. He stands from the couch, stretches, and pads into the kitchen on sock feet.

"Oh good, you're up," his mother says warmly when she sees him come in. "I'm just finishing up lunch if you'd like to join me before you head off to your afternoon class."

"You know I always love spending time with you," Barry tells her unabashedly. He leans over the counter to give her a soft kiss on her cheek, taking in the fading end of the day hint of her perfume.

Nora giggles dotingly when Barry pulls away, thwaps him gently on the shoulder with the handle of her wooden spoon, teases, "Mama's boy."

"And don't you forget it," Barry agrees with a broad grin, making her roll her eyes at him but grin back just as wide. She sets a fried egg sandwich and a mug of coffee in front of him and then turns back to the stove to finish her own. Barry takes a few moments to admire her - Mama's boy, after all - before he focuses on the TV on the far counter over her shoulder.

The news is on, the breathtakingly beautiful anchor saying seriously, "In the statement taken from him at his base, General Eiling acknowledged that this territory is now Scorn's for good. He warns citizens to steer clear of the area. And a reminder, as always, to avoid the ruins of STAR Labs, the hospital, and the old precinct at all costs."

"Thank you, Iris," says her co-anchor, but Barry pays him no attention. He can't take his eyes off of her, blinking in disappointment when she disappears to be replaced by a map and a weather man. Nora laughs again as she settles down on the stool next to him with her finished sandwich and a glass of juice.

"Are you ever gonna get over your little crush on the newslady, Barr?" she teases. Barry feels his cheeks heat up automatically. The newslady - Iris - is probably the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, he's sure of it, and he can't argue that he might have a little celebrity crush on her. But he feels so sure there's more to it than that. His heart filled up so much when he saw her - like he was proud of her. Was that weird? Probably. Definitely embarrassing. He takes a huge mouthful of his sandwich and bashfully avoids his mother's sparkling eyes.

Barry kisses his mother's cheek again when he finishes with his lunch, rinses his plate off perfunctorily in the sink, and grabs his messenger bag from the foot of the couch where he'd dropped it when he got home from his morning classes.

"See you later, baby!" Nora calls after him, still at the table as he heads out the door.

"Bye, mom!" he calls back over his shoulder. The word feels good in his mouth, filling him up with contentment like it always does. He knows some people take their parents for granted, but Barry never has, is always grateful for them and their love and care, can't even imagine what he'd do if he ever lost them. A lot of his friends don't understand how he can still live at home at twenty-six, but Barry doesn't see any reason to leave yet. He'll probably get his own place once he graduates and gets a job in his field, but until then what would be the point really?

Barry walks to campus, enjoying the warm October day, the oppressive humidity from the midwestern summer finally gone by now but the winter cold not having arrived just yet. The leaves are steadily changing, a good mix of fall colors in the trees next to a few still green, the smell of damp bark and sunlight in the air.

Barry is one of the last students to arrive in the hall for class this afternoon, Professor Saunders already waiting, leaning against her big heavy desk at the front and giving him a patient nod when he gets through the door. This class is one of his favorites for his last semester of his Masters - mainly because it's not his thesis period. Professor Saunders is one of his favorite professors, and she's always steady and confident in the subject matter yet still regards her students as equals. Barry has had her once before for Comparison of World Religions Through Literature two terms ago, and was happy to see her on his schedule again for this fusion lecture/seminar in Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory.

Discussion runs overtime, like it usually does, and by the time they're done and everyone is packing up, some quietly continuing on the subject amongst each other, Professor Saunders's husband is waiting for her by the door with their adorable baby. She kisses them both in greeting as students slowly trickle past them, the baby giggling at the attention.

"My goddess," Mr. Saunders greets his wife in a low voice, and Barry sighs wistfully as he makes his way outside with his things. They make such an amazing couple, Barry thinks. They're like soulmates. He feels certain he'll have a relationship as perfect and deep as that someday too, even if he hasn't found the right person yet.

"Hey, Barry!" someone shouts cheerfully at him and he looks up to see a casually dressed man his age waving at him from where he's been leaning against a tree and texting. Barry waves back and heads over. For some reason he can't remember this guy's name, even though he knows they have several classes together. Once you get into these upper levels it's mostly all the same faces.

"Hey," he says when he reaches the other man, awkwardly avoiding the issue.

"Your girlfriend was on TV again this afternoon," Barry's friend says teasingly, nudging Barry's shoulder with his own and laughing lightheartedly. "I didn't see her," he continues mirthfully, "but I'm sure she looked great, from how distracted you were when you walked in." A woman with peacock blue braids and glasses comes up on Barry's other side with a smirk.

"Are we talking about Barry's anchor girlfriend?" she asks lightly. Barry can't think of her name either.

"Does everyone now about my embarrassing newslady crush?" he grumbles half-heartedly, shooting narrow-eyed glares at them both despite his easy smile.

"Yes," his two friends answer in unison, and finally laugh at him out loud. Barry rolls his eyes as the three of them start walking toward the nearest campus exit.

"You know," says the casually dressed man. Barry really can't understand why his name won't come to him. They must know each other pretty well, being the same major, but Barry just can't think of it. "I heard she was actually related to Scorn." The blue haired woman blows a brief and disparaging raspberry.

"Where did you hear that?" she asks, her tone making clear what she thinks of his potentially subpar sources. "That would be such a conflict of interest. They'd never make her report on him if they were related." The guy shrugs.

"Maybe she's just that good, right Barr?" he says, elbowing Barry playfully. Barry elbows him back, not deigning to answer.

"Well, regardless," the blue haired woman declares as if there was no interruption, "Vibe is going to kill him for what he's done, this time. And good riddance, too."

"Ew," laughs the casually dressed man. "Don't be a villain groupie." The blue haired woman - Barry really wishes he could remember their names, what is wrong with him? - sticks her tongue out at him. "Anyway, not if Killer Frost gets there first."

"Now who's the villain groupie?" the blue haired woman wonders pointedly. The casually dressed man reaches across Barry to push her gently and they laugh, allowing the conversation to move on.

Barry doesn't join in, his thoughts swirling uncomfortably. Vibe? he thinks with a disconcertingly solid sense of deja vu. He thought Vibe was a hero? And Iris - how could Iris be related to a villain? The Wests are a happy, loving family. Barry is so certain of it, jittery and tense with the surety when he knows he should have no clue, no way to know any different. It's not like he knows them. He only went to elementary school with Iris West years and years ago, and they'd hardly spoken once they got to the age where cliques started forming…

Barry waves a lackluster goodbye to his friends once they exit campus and he turns away in the direction of home. He can't help but pick up his pace a little bit, eager to step into the comforting atmosphere, ready to smell that familiar fabric softener + coffee + his mom's perfume scent. He'll feel better when he gets there. He always does.

Barry plops himself down in the kitchen again for another sandwich before dinner, this one with cold cuts and crunchy veggies, strangely famished after just two hours of taking notes and theorizing about old Greco-Roman turn of phrase.

Barry's mother laughs at him and ruffles his hair as she comes down the stairs and passes around him to start on dinner.

"Are you ever gonna stop growing?" she wonders fondly. Barry grins at her around his mouthful and shakes his head, making her laugh again - something he could never hear enough of. But then she looks down at his plate and makes a face.

"Why did you put onions on your sandwich if you were just gonna pick them off, kid?" she asks, half exasperated and half fond. Barry looks down at his plate too, to find that she's right and he's picked off all of the raw onions without thinking about it.

"They're for-" he starts, and then stops abruptly. "I… changed my mind," he excuses lamely. But in his mind, Barry finishes the truer sentence he started - _they're for Iris_. Barry doesn't mind raw onions, but Iris likes them better so he always picks them off to give to her.

He _does_ know her.

...

Barry stands in the park. He'd told his mom he'd forgotten something on campus and rushed off, strange memories swirling around in his head. They feel distant, but visceral at the same time, and he isn't sure what is real… He looks around carefully, but the park is mostly empty it being just creeping up on rush hour on a weekday. Barry takes a deep breath, and then takes off running.

At first, it's just normal, and Barry starts to think maybe running at superspeed and time traveling and kissing Iris had all been some incredibly weird dream, or maybe the stress of his thesis was getting to him… But then suddenly, he's moving much faster, and then faster and faster and faster until everything around him takes on a slight blur - he's moving so fast it should all be streaking past, but his eyes can see just as fast as he can move.

Barry stops abruptly, taking in great gasps of breath - not because he's winded but because he can't believe what just happened. He wonders vaguely how fast he was going. How fast do you have to get to time travel? He must be capable of outrunning even light.

_Alright_ , he tells himself, trying to calm down. _So it's all real then_. Barry paces at normal human speed, anxiously rubbing at his temples.

"I am the Flash," he whispers to himself, his panic slowly giving way to awe. "The Fastest Man Alive."

...

The warehouse echoes strangely when Barry speeds inside, the crackle of static electricity bouncing off of the bare concrete walls. It smells musty in here, and Barry wrinkles his nose in distaste.

He's here to check on Thawne. He can't figure out how long it's been since the last time he visited his old nemesis in the speed dampening cage he'd made for him in here when he saved his mother that night. He saved his mother, Barry repeats to himself with glee and an almost overwhelming relief. Nora is safe, and that is the most important thing. Like Barry had thought that night, they deserve the happiness that they have now, and Thawne deserves to rot where Barry left him.

He just has to make sure the monster is still there.

"How's life, Eobard?" Barry calls out into the emptiness of the warehouse. It may be cruel, but Barry can't find it in himself to care too much. Nothing Barry can do could ever be as cruel as what Thawne had done - well, what he had _planned_ to do now, technically. What he would have done, if Barry hadn't stopped him.

There's no answer, and Barry struggles not to panic. It doesn't necessarily mean that Thawne isn't there. There's all sorts of reasons he might not respond. Maybe he can't think of a good enough comeback, after being stuck in here for so long. Maybe he's asleep.

Maybe he's dead ( _good good_ **_good_** ).

But Barry turns the corner and sees an open door and an empty cage, nothing there at all but the echo of Barry's mean comment in the vacant space.

The Reverse Flash is gone.

 

* * *

 

**_Next week on The Flash:_ **

_Episode 3.02 "Addicts Anonymous"_

_Barry stands in the doorway of the West house. He's holding his hands up, because Francine West is holding him at gunpoint._

_Iris West, Cecile Horton, and David Singh sit around the West coffee table, looking drawn and serious as Francine introduces them to a nervous Barry as the mutant taskforce._


	2. 3.02 "Addicts Anonymous"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry's first instinct for help with a meta problem is to go to Joe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: semi-graphic description of an anxiety attack caused by grief for a loved one

**_Previously on The Flash:_ **

_Barry runs back in time as the Flash and saves Nora Allen from Eobard Thawne, The Reverse Flash. He captures Thawne after a one-sided fight in the street._

_When Barry goes to the warehouse he held the captured Reverse Flash in, he finds that his anti-Speedforce cage is empty, the door swung wide open, the warehouse eerily silent. The Reverse Flash is gone._

 

* * *

 

Barry circles around the anti-Speedforce cage he'd rigged up in the warehouse for Thawne. He barely remembers doing it; the memory of that night is just as echoey as the far corners of the abandoned warehouse itself. The portable speed-dampening mechanisms he'd encircled the makeshift prison with (thank you Cisco, for the crash course back in that other timeline) have all been broken somehow, despite having been placed out of reach. Apparently, Thawne had found a way. He always finds a way.

There's also a fine layer of dust over everything, even and undisturbed. Thawne didn't break out this morning.

Barry wants to be surprised - shocked, outraged - but he can't manage to do it. He's furious of course, at himself a little bit for forgetting everything and just leaving Thawne to work his way around Barry's safety measures like Barry should have known he would.

But mostly at Thawne himself. The Reverse Flash. Always managing to make Barry's life hell somehow.

Thawne's absence here certainly explains a few things about this timeline, anyway. Like Vibe being a villain somehow, which could never happen normally, and Killer Frost existing on this Earth now... Thawne must be messing around with other things, changing things here and there to skew the timeline a little more with each tweak, turning things miserable again just for his own sick pleasure.

Barry hates him so much.

He sighs deeply, steeling himself to bring the Flash back into his life. After all, there's no way he can just leave Thawne to do whatever he wants with the timeline. Who knows what else he could do.

Barry kneels in front of the old storage trunk at the edge of the room and pries it open. It creaks and protests, but eventually obeys him and reveals his familiar red suit.

 _It won't be so bad_ , Barry thinks, realizing he's actually kind of missed running around his city. He can help people again. Be the Flash, and then go home to his mom and dad.

There's no reason he can't, right?

...

Barry goes for a run in his suit, getting back into the swing of his powers. It feels so good to be running again that he laughs out loud in joy at the feeling of the Speedforce rushing through his body, the feel of the wind against the rare exposed parts of his face. He can't believe he forgot about this.

As he runs, Barry lets himself remember everything else too. Cisco and Caitlin joking around and teasing each other in the Lab, running Barry through test after test, both of their eyes alight with each new theory or discovery. Working for the police force as a CSI - to think, now he's finishing a high degree in Classical Literature! Chief Singh giving him well-deserved hell for being late - _again_ , despite his speed (not that Singh ever knew about that, or at least Barry never told him). Growing up with the Wests, Barry's schoolboy crush on Iris growing into a deep romantic love he just couldn't get over. Joe always knew, Barry thinks, but he never brought it up. He always let Barry and Iris make their own way and their own mistakes (give or take some potent disapproval, of course). But he was always there when either of them finally decided they needed help with something, with anything.

Barry decides he needs help now, and like it always has been before Joe is the best person to ask. Well. Barry supposes he could ask his own father, now, but he's not sure he's ready to tell his parents about his powers. And he doesn't think he'll ever be ready to tell them about the old timeline. He doesn't want to talk about it, not ever again, and besides that he's not sure how they'll take it.

So. Joe it is.

Judging by the news about Vibe and Killer Frost (and this new Scorn guy) there are still metas kicking around in this timeline, so Barry figures Joe is probably still heading up his metahuman taskforce at the police station. Barry can't see any reason he wouldn't, unless something is really _really_ different somehow, like on Earth-2 where he's a singer, so Joe will probably be prepared to deal with a superpowered threat - and a superpowered ally.

Decision made, Barry takes off for the West house, the route just as familiar as ever. He changes back into his civilian clothes at super speed on the doorstep and then reaches for his pocket on autopilot, forgetting for a moment that in this timeline he doesn't have a key here. He laughs at himself a little ruefully, more uncomfortable than he'd expect at his mistake, before he shakes it off and knocks.

Barry's heart stops for just a second when someone he barely recognizes answers the door. It's Iris's mom - Francine. Barry's heart picks up double time once he places her and he grins so hard his cheeks hurt. She's alive! That's so great! All Barry ever wanted for Iris (and himself) was to grow up loved on all sides, with both of her parents. Even if it means not being as close to her as he could have been (as he almost feels like he's meant to be, but he's here now so maybe they can still have that), Barry is thrilled that she has Francine in her life now. And that anchor job too! She's doing so great, and Barry is just as thrilled for her as he is for himself.

"Hello, Mrs. West!" he says cheerfully, with a little wave. She only squints at him, but Barry figures that makes a kind of sense seeing as how they probably have never met. She's probably trying to figure out how he knows her. But he can explain later, or leave it to Joe. "I'm looking for Joe, is he home?"

An ugly look takes over Mrs. West's face, but Barry barely has a second to see it before the West door has been slammed resoundingly in his face.

What in the world?

Not to be deterred, Barry squares his jaw and his shoulders and knocks again. He realizes if Joe's home it's his time off, and without the Flash he's probably overworked and wouldn't like to be bothered but this is important. Besides, Barry is back now. He can help. He wants to help. The door swings open again after a second insistent knock.

"Mrs. West, I really need to-" Barry begins, but he's cut off sharply when Mrs. West grabs him by his collar and yanks him over the threshold. The door clicks closed solidly behind him, but Barry doesn't hear it because his blood is pumping too fast through his veins and making his ears ring, because the cold and unforgiving barrel of a handgun is pressing into his temple. Even with his healing factor, Barry doubts he could survive that shot, so he stays silent and holds up his hands in surrender, listening to his heart race as he meets Mrs. West's too-hard eyes.

"My husband is gone, and if you dare say his name again," she growls with a curl of her lip, and Barry goes cold all over, shivers. "I will shoot you dead where you stand."

The threat doesn't quite register. Barry can only hear "my husband is gone" in his head over and over again. Gone? As in dead? No, Joe can't be… No…

"J-Joe's dead?" Barry stutters out. His heart hurts. It's beating too fast, but it feels slow. His stomach hurts too, and his eyes. How could…? The safety of Mrs. West's gun clicks, but Barry doesn't react, except to blink when her face begins to blur.

Slowly, Mrs. West softens, and her safety clicks back on.

"I suppose you live under a rock?" she allows grudgingly. When she lets go of him, Barry sags back against the door, inexplicably weak. He tries to swallow back the grief. He shouldn't feel that strongly, anymore, in this timeline. He barely knows Joe, here, now, and he has his own father. It shouldn't feel like this. Why does it have to feel like this?

Barry takes deep breaths and thinks about things that make him feel safe, like his old therapist in that other timeline taught him before he'd learned not to talk about the man in yellow. It was worse in that timeline. It was worse there. This is just - this is just shock, or something. It's just. It just feels this strong because Barry just remembered everything. He'll calm down soon and it won't be so bad. It was worse in the other timeline. This isn't as bad. It was worse there. Barry desperately grasps in his memory for his comforting things... Joe's tight hugs after a nightmare - no! No. Fabric softener and coffee and his mother's perfume, his dad clapping Barry on the back in the mornings as he heads to work wishing Barry a good day in classes, wind chimes on the porch.

Mrs. West waits semi-patiently for Barry to calm down and answer her. She hasn't put her gun away, though her hands rest by her sides now. When Barry finally breathes normally again and meets her cool look, she raises her eyebrows expectantly.

"I…" Barry starts, thinking hard for an excuse. A partial truth. He can't. He can't tell the whole story, right now. When he hasn't just remembered, he'll tell her. When it's not as fresh. "I'm from an alternate universe," he settles on. "Joe is alive there. He runs a metahuman taskforce, and I need his help."

...

Mrs. West makes them tea, going through the motions dully. The brew she hands Barry when she's done is lukewarm and watery, but he cradles it in his shaky hands and drinks it anyway.

"Just call me Francine," she says, her voice just as dull as her movements and, Barry begins to notice, the house around her. It's too quiet here, and there are no pictures. Barry looks away, focuses on his bland tea. It's just because it's not what he's used to.

"You said a villain from your universe followed you here?" Francine asks leadingly, looking for more information. Barry nods without looking up.

"We both have the same powers," he explains. "Super speed. I-" he stumbles over his words, but he's not hesitating. It's not a lie. "I saved someone from him, and he wants revenge." Francine nods along, taking a sip from her own tea before frowning and setting it aside.

"Well," she says with a sigh. "There's still a mutant taskforce here, and we're probably your best bet to apprehend your villain. There's only a few of us left now, so we'll be glad to take you on." Barry finally looks up at that, feeling cold again. The tea isn't warm enough.

"Only a few left…?" he repeats. His throat feels sticky, so he takes another sip. "What happened?"

"Well," Francine says again. She turns away, pouring her tea into the sink and then staying there, staring down the drain. "There was this particle accelerator the people at STAR Labs made, and when the idiots turned it on it exploded. Some kind of radiation flooded the whole city, mutated people. That's how we got our 'metahumans' as you called them. Mutants."

Francine's voice has taken on a certain cadence, like the bedtime storytelling that Iris used to tell Barry tales about by his own bedside after he came to live with them, but now her tone is still dull - nothing like the memory of the doting, vibrant mother that Iris had shared with him in the old timeline.

But at least she's alive. That's still better.

"The Lab is Vibe's territory now. The mobs fled that year, probably because the Mist killed so many of them, but it's not known for sure. Vibe, Killer Frost, and Firestorm filled the power vacuum until Firestorm disappeared in 2016 and the other two turned on each other. Even before that they were too much for the police to handle, and after they were even more ruthless. The force is completely decimated now."

Barry swallows again and again, watching Francine's tense back as she speaks. He takes a deep gulp of his tea, finishing it off, to have an excuse for why his throat keeps working and working…

"They sent in the military to take care of things, but they don't know how to handle it either. What with them on one side, and the mutants battling for turf on the other, Central might as well be declared a war zone."

Finally Francine turns back around to face Barry again. His mouth is dry, despite all the tea he just drank. The mug is vibrating in his hands. He tries to go still. If he doesn't stop soon the mug will crack.

"Your villain will be choosing a side in that war," Francine tells him without doubt. "Vibe or Killer Frost. Time is ticking down for us to still be able to do anything to prevent more casualties. If you help us, we'll help you."

What else can Barry do but nod?

...

The mutant taskforce meets in the West house at nine o'clock, circled around the living room table with paper cups of coffee and grim frowns. Francine stands with Barry in the doorway through to the kitchen as everyone takes what seems like their usual spot, waiting impatiently to make introductions and get started. She points out her daughter first, though of course Barry recognized her the moment she came in.

"Iris West," Francine says, her tone officious and clinical. "Ex investigative journalist for Picture News, currently the main anchor. She brings in the most up to date information and runs our communications grid." Barry nods at her like they don't know each other, because in this timeline they don't - yet. He takes note of the engagement ring she's wearing with bittersweetness. Maybe Eddie gave it to her. They were happy before, and Barry was happy for them then. He can be happy for her. He is happy for her.

"Cecile Horton," Francine continues, pointing to the pretty older woman sitting to Iris's left. She gives Barry a tight smile. In the old timeline, Barry had seen her around at the station every now and then, usually talking to Singh. "District Attorney. Not much left to do at her day job anymore, seeing as how criminals these days can't be brought in to court. She keeps us straight on personal history - grudges and alliances and that sort of thing."

Francine points to the last member, another person Barry already knows the name of, and introduces, "David Singh. Chief of Police, what's left of them, and the police-military liaison. He has direct contact with General Eiling, and can keep us apprised of our time table."

"We're military condoned," she says to Barry as an aside. "As long as we get results."

"How much of those have you got so far?" Barry asks hesitantly.

"None," she answers bluntly, before continuing. "Singh also has intimate knowledge of mutant criminal history; their powers, ease of arrest - or lack thereof, usually - and M.O." Finally Francine turns to face Barry head on, serious and steady.

"And me," she finishes. "This taskforce is my full time occupation. My husband and son, and my daughter's fiance, were caught and killed in mutant crossfire, and I intend to be responsible for putting every last mutant criminal away for good."

Behind her, the other three members of the taskforce won't meet each other's eyes, shifting restlessly. Barry thinks nothing of it - he's uncomfortable too. To be so… _blase_ about that kind of loss… Barry doesn't know what to make of it.

"I am the leader and the strategist of this outfit," Francine tells Barry, no nonsense. "During these meetings I have no name. You call me Ma'am. Understand?"

Barry's tongue refuses to move, so he just nods.

"Good," Francine acknowledges with her own brief, sharp nod in return. "Then let's get to work."

 

* * *

 

**_Next week on The Flash:_ **

_Episode 3.03 "The Godparents"_

_With difficulty past the tightness in his throat, Barry asks Francine what happened in this timeline to cause the turf war._

_Like in the old timeline, the particle accelerator at STAR Labs malfunctions and explodes, sending unique radiation out into the city._

_A different sort of radiation billows out like fire from Firestorm - Ronnie Raymond. He looks like he's about to explode._

_Killer Frost sneers in Vibe's face, her bright blue eyes glowing with rage. "If you want a war," she says, "you've got one."_


	3. 3.03 "The Godparents"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vibe creates meta organized crime after the particle accelerator explosion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: semi-graphic descriptions of pain, threat to hospital patients (none harmed), Caitlin keeps Ronnie's corpse
> 
> guest appearances: John Leguizamo as "Santini"

**_Previously on The Flash:_ **

_Barry asks Francine over tea what happened in this timeline._

_"There was this particle accelerator at STAR Labs, and it exploded, flooding the whole city with radiation and changing people, turning them into mutants," she explains. "The mobs fled and Vibe, Killer Frost, and Firestorm filled the power vacuum until Firestorm disappeared and they turned on each other. Central might as well be a warzone."_

 

* * *

 

**2013**

Harrison Wells kisses his wife, Tess, as they do the official bit, cutting the ribbon and all on stage with their team at the expo they'd arranged for the first turning on of their particle accelerator at STAR Labs. The crowd claps and cheers as the ribbon falls, a much bigger and more excitable group than any of them had been expecting.

"Never felt like a rockstar 'cause of my science work before," Cisco says to Hartley with a grin as they line up to take a bow. Hartley only raises a doubtful eyebrow, and Cisco laughs.

"Well," he admits easily. "Not this much of a rockstar." Cisco takes Hartley's hand in one of his and Dr. Wells's in the other, Tess, Caitlin, and Ronnie on their boss's other side, and Hartley can't help but grin back at him.

He feels it too.

They go inside to do the less official bit, the actual turning on, the real science that everyone is here for in the first place. The big red button is pressed, and then they're clapping and hugging, and Cisco and Ronnie have pulled out a bottle of champagne that Hartley is very much not surprised that they smuggled in.

Cisco pops the damn thing just right so that it sprays all over Hartley, and Hartley only. Hartley squeals and scowls, but he's not really that upset about it. This suit was bought on his parents' money after all, so no one could care about it less than he does. Plus, smearing sticky bubbly on his frenemy or whatever is the perfect excuse to put his hands all over Cisco's face and hair, which. Hartley is sure no one is fooled by that, but. A man has to have dignity. Or at least the facsimile of it.

They really wasted no time at all, and they've already poured and started drinking in the barely a minute it takes for something to go wrong. There's just one little warning _bleep_ on one computer before the alarms start blaring. Hartley drops his champagne flute and it shatters at his feet as he covers his ears with a shout. The implant surgery was years ago, but no matter how much time passes he still finds it difficult to handle loud noises.

Hartley bucks it up quick, though. They have to fix whatever's wrong. Dr. Wells is already leaning over a console to pinpoint the problem, and Hartley rushes over to another to help. He has no idea what the fuck is happening, stumbling as the building begins to shake - _how?!_ They didn't find any problems before or they would have delayed turn on! How can there have been something this serious that they missed? There's no way, it has to be something simple. It _has_ to.

Tess and Caitlin are screaming - to be heard over the noise or out of fear Hartley doesn't know. What he knows is that he can find what's wrong. Together, he and Dr. Wells can do anything. They can fix this. Everything will be fine. Someone tugs at his elbow, but he jabs the distraction away.

"Shut it down!" Ronnie yells in Hartley's ear. Hartley does not appreciate it. As if it's not already loud enough in here, as if Hartley isn't already well enough on his way to a meltdown. He has to concentrate. He can do this. He and Dr. Wells can do this.

After receiving no response from Hartley, Ronnie yells to Caitlin instead, "I'm going to go shut it down manually. If I don't make it out someone has to close the pipeline behind me."

Hartley feels sick to his stomach. God, he has to fix this. Ronnie can't go in there with all that radiation. He has to fix it before Ronnie gets down there. He can hear Caitlin screaming some more, hopefully delaying Ronnie as long as possible so that Hartley can find the anomaly and _fix it_ -

The next time Hartley looks up to blink the blur out of his strained, panicky eyes they are both gone.

Cisco tugs at Hartley's elbow again, begging, "Come on, Hart. We have to get out of here."

But Hartley won't go.

He has to fix it.

At the mouth to the pipeline, Caitlin waits for her fiancé to come back to her from his pointless heroics. They should have evacuated. They all should have just evacuated, as soon as the alarms started blaring. This won't work, Caitlin knows it deep in her bones. If it wasn't for Ronnie she might have already left, living with the guilt of abandoning her friends and coworkers forever if they would still refuse to follow her like she'd pleaded for them to. But no, Ronnie wanted to save everyone. So here she is, waiting for him to come back or die.

He doesn't come back.

She's supposed to have closed the pipeline already but she keeps waiting. What difference will it make, really? The radiation is going to get out anyway, at least a little, probably more than a little. So what difference does it make? She'll keep waiting. She doesn't care about anyone else right now - she only wants Ronnie to come back to her. She'll keep waiting.

She waits too long.

The radiation billows out of the pipeline, an orange-purple blur from the parts of it that are already ignited, and it hits Caitlin head-on like a breaking wave. It's unbearably hot. Caitlin screams and can't hear her own voice, or feel the way her vocal chords are probably ripping. She can feel her clothes melting into her, her skin blistering and cracking like heated rubber.

Her hair turns white, and Caitlin has a moment to wonder at how it's still there, instead of incinerated in the heat and the radiation. Her vision goes blue-tinted and her temperature starts to lower. This doesn't make any sense, but she's not in as much pain anymore so she decides she doesn't care. She can breathe again, and when she exhales after gasping in as much air as she can get in one mouthful, her breath fogs in the apocalyptic mirage in front of her. Over the rushing of the air, Caitlin hears a sound like the sudden cracking of a frozen lake under the sun, and then a concussive blast like thunder if thunder happened under your feet instead of miles up in the sky. As everything goes dark for her, Caitlin vaguely hopes she doesn't melt.

When the explosion finally hits the cortex, Hartley and Dr. Wells both are still searching madly through code, shouting desperate half-baked ideas to each other. They both know deep down it's a lost cause, but it's too late to evacuate now. It's either keep trying or give up altogether. The radiation bubble is preceded by the sounds of buckling, melting architecture and equipment. Hartley has started crying, he thinks, and his vision is tunnelling. He can't see the code he's searching through anymore, but he doesn't let himself scream or take out his fear and frustration on the monitor or himself like he wants to.

He doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to give up.

As the soundtrack of destruction thunders ever closer like some sort of ravaging beast, a terrifying inescapable monster, Cisco grabs Hartley bodily around his waist and tosses him down onto the floor. Hiding under the desk won't do shit for them really - this isn't an earthquake or an air raid or whatever - but Hartley finally can't keep himself in check anymore. So when Cisco stumbles down onto the floor with him and pushes him back, turns so he can brace an arm against the tabletop above them like that will help, Hartley curls into his warm back, taking handfuls of his soft shirt (he always wears the softest shirts, Hartley has always wanted to rub himself all over them) and sobs mindlessly with his face buried in between Cisco's tense shoulders.

The radiation reaches them and Hartley hears Cisco scream like the sound is coming to him through thick liquid. He feels something hot dripping down the side of his face, so maybe it is. Still taking in deep desperate lungfuls of air, Hartley wraps his arms around Cisco's middle and hugs him tightly, ignoring how his hands burn. He wishes they had more time, or that he had been a little braver. Maybe they could have been more than frenemies. The world goes dark with Cisco's scent in Hartley's nose and some of his hair in Hartley's mouth, almost - but not quite - comforting.

 

**2014**

_[a broadcast on Central Picture News._

_Clyde and Mark Mardon in cell phone footage from a hostage at a bank robbery. The anchor in the voiceover advises viewers to take note of the Mardons' faces and to evacuate any location where they are spotted. The two of them laugh as Clyde fills bags with money and Mark needlessly terrifies their hostages. There is a flash of lightning and the footage shorts out._

_Official media footage of Danton Black leaving the police station, grinning smugly into the camera. The anchor's voiceover provides an update on the case he was brought in for: all charges were dropped due to officers being unable to place him at the scene beyond reasonable doubt. There are no other suspects in the investigation so far._

_Official media footage of an active crime scene at the home of one of the highest ranking members of the Darbinyan crime family. There are covered bodies everywhere, but no blood and very few signs of struggle. The anchor's voiceover explains that police have found only traces of poisonous gas, but have not yet discovered the delivery system or the motive. Viewers are advised to avoid known Darbinyan and Santini owned real estate, as this appears to be the first strike in a brutal mafia war._

_Grainy CCTV footage of another bank robbery. However, the focus is not the robber(s) this time. The bank is in chaos as police and civilians alike attack each other indiscriminately. Previous to showing the footage, the anchor had warned that it may not be suitable for all viewers. So far there has been no official explanation given for the carnage on screen. The anchor reports that three civilians and one police officer were killed during the event, and many more injured.]_

…

A large group of officers converges on the ruins of STAR Labs, bulked up in their SWAT gear. They're here as a last ditch pre-emptive strike, desperate to understand and apprehend the radiation source that must be the cause of all the recent freakish occurrences. Their stakeouts haven't given them much information, aside from the fact that at least one of the leading scientists who worked on the particle accelerator that exploded still comes and goes. The commanding officer of the party doesn't bother gesturing for a quiet breach. They are all angry and frantic for a solution, or at least some gained ground. They go in guns blazing.

Caitlin, Hartley, and Ronnie are holding off the flying bullets as well as they can. Caitlin has put up ice walls that are slowly being chipped away, even as the officers yell in surprise, fright, and fury at how they came shooting out of her hands. She doesn't know how (if?) she can do anything else, and she has poor control. More than once, a person ends up embedded inside a barrier as she puts it up.

Hartley's control is no better. Sometimes the concussive force coming from his hands only pushes an officer a few feet back, leaving them on their feet. Sometimes it throws them with sickening cracks into each other or the walls. Sometimes his aim is off and he takes out one of Caitlin's barriers, sending deadly sharp shards of ice raining down on all of them.

Ronnie's control is the worst, and they are the least sure how his powers work. Caitlin had forbidden him from helping when they saw the police bursting in on their security cameras, unless it got to the point they had no other choice. It looks like it's getting there, and Ronnie stands. He ignores the voice in his head asking him to be reasonable, to think things through. He doesn't know who that man is, and what else can he do? Caitlin has a healing factor but they don't know enough about it to count on it, and Hartley is just as vulnerable as any normal human - more vulnerable than the police with all their protective gear. He feels the protective rage bubble up inside him, physically hot, feels it begin to gather in his hands.

And then the world wobbles, ripples like the surface of water that just got a rock dropped in it, or like a mirage somehow still visible up so close, and then a sound like shaking laminate and a writhing circle on the floor of some blue plasma-

And then the police are gone. Every single one of them, dead or alive, as if they were never there.

Cisco is standing the the doorway behind them, in his hospital gown, greasy hair coming out of the bun Hartley had carefully tied it in, with both hands out stretched, looking exhausted and furious.

"You're awake!" Hartley cries, his voice cracking open. It has been almost a year, after all. He rushes forward to hug Cisco, but as soon as they touch Cisco's eyes go glassy and distant like they were when the particle accelerator explosion had finally stopped, as if he is somewhere else entirely.

Hartley lets go of him, swallowing back tears.

"Well," he says to the others as they look around them at the destroyed but now empty room. They've been hiding out here ever since the particle accelerator incident, having woken up with mutations and two dead colleagues and not knowing if they could ever be welcomed back in the normal world of the rest of the city after what they'd done, and what it seemed they had become. Until now they had only been 'wanted for questioning', or at least that was the official statement put out in hopes that they would all turn themselves in. No way anyone is going to even pretend at mercy for them now. "I guess it's official."

They're criminals.

…

Cisco is awake consistently now, though he still goes glassy and distant often, especially when anyone touches him without warning (Hartley can relate, kind of).

He's a lot bossier now than he was, though, which isn't saying a little.

At his direction, the other three of them start gathering up the other… Well, Cisco calls them 'metahumans'. Most of them are criminals (too), but Cisco doesn't seem to care ("Right and wrong is pretty relative, in the grand scheme of things," he says flippantly. "And believe me, the scheme _is_ grand."). Hartley, Caitlin, and Ronnie bring them in, and Cisco always has a nickname pre-prepared for them.

Sometimes he mutters to himself, "That one is stupid. What was I thinking?" and they never ask.

They all start training together, learning more about their powers. They use the old pipeline as a sparring ground, throwing each other around without fear of breaking things or sending some weird shit out into their living environment.

Caitlin ("Killer Frost," says Cisco. "I didn't come up with that one, but it's a good one.") works with Shawna ("Peek-a-Boo," says Cisco. "How cute is that, am I right?") on learning to teleport with a less solid visual through meditation techniques that also help Caitlin ("Killer Frost," Cisco snaps. "I just said.") maintain and focus her control over her own powers. She also helps Roy ("Rainbow Raider," says Cisco with distaste, shaking his head at Ca- Killer Frost. "That was your idea. It's fine, we'll work on it.") learn how to utilize other emotional colors than red for anger. Things get super uncomfortable anywhere they're working on that, and most of the rest of them try not to be nearby so as to avoid becoming a guinea pig. One of Cisco's many powers has a somewhat similar effect to Hartley's, so they spar sometimes. Cisco does not go easy on him, but Hartley refuses to acknowledge that sometimes he's unsure when (if?) Cisco will stop and let him get up. They're not frenemies anymore - they've been through so much now they're more than that, and Hartley will not be afraid of his… whatever it is Cisco is to him now.

There are so many of them, it's inevitable that some of them would not get along at all. The Mardon brothers, for example, are not the best team players, except with each other. Cisco takes it in stride though, handling them and everyone with a mysterious ease. He matches people up with just the right partners or guides to work with seamlessly.

There are so many of them, it's also inevitable that some of them would really, _really_ get along. If Hartley wasn't so gone on Cisco (not that he thinks that will ever happen), he's certain that he and Axel ("Trickster," says Cisco. "Inherited, but quality.") would make a great pair - what with Axel's ("Trickster," Cisco snarls. "How many times-") sharp features, sharper grin, and sharpest wits. They flirt a little and it's harmless - unlike how _some_ people do it.

There's another explosion over where Bette ("Plastique," says Cisco. "Good shit.") and Laurel ("Black Siren," says Cisco, curiously. "How did she get here?") are, ahem, _sparring_ . They laugh at each other with wolfish grins, and on the other side of the room Cisco waggles his eyebrows at Kyle ("Mist," Cisco says. "But honestly, just your last name as-is is better.") who looks put out. There's a shriek that has Hartley flinching away, and another bang, and _damn_ , no offense to them, but Hartley is so glad he's gay.

"Just kiss!" Cisco yells at them eventually, and they do.

Cisco ("Vibe," he says proudly. "Also a verb.") and Ca- Killer Frost have a semi-friendly competition going on as they collect and train their meta pals. It seems like they are now the frenemies of the group, although Hartley doesn't know how or why that happened. Cisc- Vibe seems to always be watching her cautiously, giving her somewhat fixed smiles when she's looking his way. Hartley's not brave enough to ask (surprise, surprise from Mr. Not Brave Enough to Ask Cisco Anything, Apparently). They count up how many metas they collect, how many each of them is the _favorite_ of, like points or poker chips.

"You'll never beat me Vibe," Killer Frost chatters with a besotted grin at Ronnie ("Firestorm," Vibe says. "Also not mine, but _so_ awesome.") as she curls her arm around his waist, sending up a small cloud of steam. "Not as long as I have all _this_ firepower." Vibe snorts at the pun, but doesn't offer a rejoinder. Hartley looks away and pretends he didn't notice the difference.

As the group of metas gets closer, friendlier, Hartley tries to put the differences in his friends aside. He's sure he's different now too; they've been through more than enough to change them so much. Still, he misses the way they were and does everything in his power (short of confronting anyone) to lighten up the atmosphere at STAR Labs - STAR Labs, which Hartley is rapidly beginning to think of as his home, his family, even more than he had before.

So when Vibe and Killer Frost go hard enough on their meta collection, Hartley says jokingly, "C'mon, let the babies rest." He's deeply relieved when Vibe laughs, nudges Killer Frost's shoulder companionably. Maybe it'll work.

When Vibe deems them, as a group, ready, he claps his gloved hands together (he'd made them all suits, putting them together in no time, not even needing measurements) as they crowd around him in an excited half circle.

"Who wants to make some trouble?" he asks, and the excitement grows. Hartley's not sure he wants to make real trouble - not the kind of trouble the Mardon brothers ("Weather Wizards," Cisco says. "No wand this time, promise.") or Plastique usually make, at least - but at the same time… It's not like he's short on petty anger or tall on cash or, more importantly, respect.

Vibe looks right at Hartley and winks with a crooked grin. So that's that decision made, really.

"Let's rob your good for nothing parents, Piper," he suggests warmly. "What do you think of that?" Hartley grins back (even though he liked it better when Cisco's nickname for him was 'Hart'), and tightens his gear.

…

They rob the shit out of Hartley's parents. They get through two mansions and are heading out from the third, turning back to absolutely demolish it on their way, when the police arrive.

A bunch of cars, sirens going. A barricade. Up front with grim faces, two handsome detectives with their guns out - one older, black, flinty eyed; one younger, blond, square jawed.

Vibe laughs.

…

_[a broadcast on Central Picture News. Iris West is the anchor._

_"Current police theory is that the Families are leaving in fear of the new mutant organized crime group," she's saying over montage footage of recently abandoned townhomes and restaurants, "after one of its members, known as the Mist, killed several Santinis after his previous attack on the Darbinyans just months ago."]_

Vibe raises his eyebrows at Nimbus questioningly as the news goes off air, but Nimbus just shrugs. _Good riddance_ , his expression says, _but I didn't do it_.

"Huh," says Vibe. "Weird. Let's check it out."

They catch a fleeing Santini just before he makes it over the city line. It only takes Tony ("Girder," Vibe says. "Because 'Steel' is both taken and incredibly stupid.") holding the guy up by his collar before he spills his metaphorical guts everywhere. Not that he actually tells them anything, muttering about freezing and burning, Cold like with a capital letter, and crazy eyes.

"Is he talking about us, dear?" Killer Frost asks Firestorm sweetly. They're pressed up against each other's sides again, steaming like always. Gross.

"I don't think he is," Vibe says, sounding curious, and the Santini guy shakes his head frantically in agreement.

"They know us," he says. It would be cryptic if he wasn't so hysterical.

"Who?" Vibe wonders, but strangely even though this was his idea he only sounds vaguely curious, like he already kind of knows the answer.

"I- I don't-" Santini stutters, his eyes starting to glaze over even though they haven't done anything to him. " _They_ ," he insists desperately, and then blinks up at them in confusion. "I… shouldn't be here?" he mutters then, sounding unsure.

"Wow," Vibe says wryly, gesturing to Girder to let Santini go. The second he's released, he scrambles back into his Benz and speeds away. "'They' sound absolutely _legendary_." His mouth twists and his eyes spark brightly, like he's made some sort of supremely funny but especially sardonic joke.

As usual, nobody questions him.

Not even when he holds out a hand toward the Benz with a… a _pout_ and makes it disappear.

"Well," says Hartley, making his voice light and unshaky. If there's any of the mob left in Central, there's not enough for it to matter. "I guess it's official."

They, this metahuman group, are the new Boss in town.

And by 'they' Hartley means Vibe.

…

Nimbus starts calling Vibe and Killer Frost "Pop" and "Ma" - in accordance, Hartley assumes, with their new position and how Nimbus is used to the familial mafia hierarchy.

After Hartley already called the rest of them Vibe's and Killer Frost's babies, it catches on pretty easily. Each one of them comes up with their own parental nicknames for the Bosses (although some of them just stick with "Boss".

Hartley is one of the latter. He very pointedly does not think about what fatherly-adjacent nickname he might like to call Ci- Vibe. _Vibe_. Really, he doesn't think he wants Vibe the way he wanted Cisco anyway. The way Vibe sometimes gets all quiet and deadly… They're different people.)

 

**2016**

Vibe, Killer Frost, and Firestorm go out on a mission together while everyone else chills out at home after a few of their own jobs well done. They're headed off to the hospital, Vibe and Firestorm for firepower and Killer Frost for telling what's sustainably valuable.

They just walk right in the front door and say hello, and people are already screaming, crying, getting on the floor - either to beg for mercy or take cover Vibe doesn't particularly care. He holds the door open behind himself and gestures to it graciously, because no one here right at this moment has done or will do anything to him personally. They stream past him without question, no silly heroics. Central City has been taught with tough love, and learned well.

Vibe is the Boss.

Killer Frost heads over to the pharmacy area, empty and abandoned with haste just like everywhere else. The only noise comes from around the back at the ER area where in-patients are being loaded up by the bravest medical professionals into ambulances to be taken to the next closest facility. Good for them, not that it's really necessary. They're only here for the goods after all, it's not like they're planning to blow the place. But whatever. As long as they're not in the way, they can do whatever they think they need to do.

Vibe and Firestorm head off into the rest of the hospital to see what else they can find while Killer Frost works, split up at the cross section of pediatrics and oncology.

Firestorm is gathering up the half dozen tablets behind a reception desk when his body becomes reactive out of his control. There's no rage or confusion or anything else this time to have triggered it, only a strange feeling of coming apart, of something from deep within him separating. The shimmer of an older man in a sweater and tie appears in the air in front of him before disappearing. Ronnie has barely seconds to be confused and panicky, to feel the terrible swirling, sucking sensation like a black hole inside his own mind, before he explodes.

Vibe drops the defibrillator machine he was contemplating when he hears the explosion and takes off in the direction of the sound. What the hell? He thought everyone had been smart enough to get out of here. It's probably nothing Firestorm can't handle on his own, but just in case. Besides, Vibe loves to make an entrance, to save the day and be the last thing the big bad good guys see (on this Earth anyway).

But when he gets to the smoking remains of a room in pediatrics, Firestorm's body is on the floor all alone, no assailant and no evidence of one either.

Killer Frost arrives in the doorway behind Vibe in seconds.

"I thought," she starts, blinking at Ronnie's limp, soot-covered form, her voice weak with grief, at first. "I thought it was just a game."

Vibe blinks at her in confusion, before realizing what she must be seeing. Just in time he throws up his hands as she blasts him with a heavy wave of ice, the freezing air rushing out all around her and throwing everything in the room around like a snow storm has touched down. He vibes away just before he would have been slammed back and broken against the far wall - one of only two walls left in the room.

He won't grieve for their friendship, not this time. He knew with her as Killer Frost it could only be a matter of time.

…

Killer Frost follows Vibe back to STAR Labs, faster than ever before on jetstreams of ice that she leaves behind her like deadly ribbons to break or melt and crash down onto the city below.

They fight, Killer Frost howling in rage. There is no winner, but there are more than a couple bystanding metas who lose.

When the two of them finally come to an impasse, their metas cowering all around them under whatever they could find, Killer Frost points one furious, fog-filled hand at Vibe.

"He killed Ronnie," she screams, and for once Vibe doesn't correct the name. "To win a stupid little competition, Vibe killed one of us in cold blood."

She doesn't sound like Caitlin, or even like the Killer Frost they've come to know.

"If you want a real fight, _Vibe_ ," she snarls, stepping up close into Vibe's space. He doesn't back away or flinch. He looks grim, like he was always expecting this. "If you want a _war_ \- you've got one."

She disappears in a painful, swirling flurry of ice cold snow. The silence is deafeningly deep - and Hartley doesn't use that kind of description lightly.

Into the oppressive quiet, Vibe says with finality, "You have five minutes to choose a side."

 

**Now**

In the cortex room at the ruins of STAR Labs, Vibe lounges in a high backed throne of welded together ruined machinery. Idly, he vibes a stress ball around the room and back into his hand in bursts, scowling in angry thought. A group of metas sits at his feet, including a laughing blonde woman in all black and a tall man with a wicked sneer. The group whispers to each other as they wait.

In the still-abandoned hospital, in a room with only two walls, Killer Frost sits rigidly in a throne of ice. She has replaced the missing walls with thick sheets of ice, filling the room with eery blue tinted light. In one of her replacement walls, at the right hand of her throne, the dead body of Ronnie Raymond is suspended, his eyes open and watching over her shoulder. There are icicles capping each of her fingers, and she sharpens them steadily on the arm of her throne, each scrape filling the freezing room with an equally chilling sound.

"I'm getting bored," she complains as she tests the deadly tip of one icicle nail against the palm of her hand. She bleeds, and then heals. The blood on the tip of the icicle looks black instead of red in the blue light. Then again, for all anyone knows maybe it really is black.

At Killer Frost's feet is her own group of metas. One of them, a bald man with a sickening closed-mouthed smile, looks up at her with reverence.

"Well, Ma," he says in a light southern European accent. "When do we start?"

 

* * *

 

**_Next week on The Flash:_ **

_Episode 3.04 "True Colors"_

_A bearded man in a sharp, pinstriped suit and a short blonde woman in a green dress hide in an alley behind the icy hospital. He grips her elbow urgently, whispering to her, before taking her cheek in one hand and kissing her tenderly. When they leave the alley, they go in opposite directions._

_Iris sits with Barry at a small table, talking seriously. She tells him with hesitance that she feels like she's known him all her life._

_Vibe appears out of a circle of writhing blue plasma behind Iris and grabs her._


	4. 3.04 "True Colors"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry finds out who Scorn is and goes on a date with Iris that doesn't end well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: prejudiced language against fictional group (ala x-men trilogy), gray morality, graphic description of panic attack, discussions of past character death

**_Previously on The Flash:_ **

_Vibe and Killer Frost fight inside the STAR Labs cortex in front of the organized metas. The fight ends in a draw, and as Killer Frost leaves Vibe instructs the bystanders ominously to choose sides._

_Francine tells Barry that Eddie, Wally, and Joe were all killed during a mutant attack. Around her table sit the remaining members of the mutant taskforce: Iris West, Cecile Horton, and David Singh._

 

* * *

 

Magenta's breath fogs in front of her face and she rubs her arms in vain. It's always absolutely freezing at Killer Frost's hospital base of operations, what with most of it being either made out of ice or covered in it. She's careful to step around the pool of black ice - one of several boobie traps - in front of the ER exit where she usually comes in, but before Magenta can reach the hated icicles like bars in the actual doorway, she hears whispering coming from just around the corner.

Under normal circumstances Magenta would just ignore it and mind her own business, but these aren't normal circumstances. Under normal circumstances, Magenta would never have been here in the first place. So she creeps back around the black ice trap so that she can peer around the cold, dripping corner of the building and listen closer.

"You know they'll take each other out, baby," Mirror Master is saying to whoever he's with. Their body is blocked from Magenta's view by his, but she can tell that whoever they are they're wearing a lot of green. "And Scorn too. If we just wait it out we can take Central for ourselves."

"That does sound nice," says Mirror Master's companion. A high voice - probably a woman. "But do we really have to wait for it?" Mirror Master shifts his weight just enough for Magenta to be able to see the woman's face when she finishes, "Why can't we just kill them in their sleep like they deserve?" She looks a little bored and a lot irritated when she says it, and Magenta feels a chill that doesn't have much to do with the cold all around them. Mirror Master must see something else though, or maybe he just likes that, because he laughs softly and touches her face, brushing her blonde hair back behind her ear.

"I miss you too," he tells her, and now Magenta is uncomfortable for a different reason. She has never heard Mirror Master sound so… human. "I promise we won't be on opposite sides for much longer, Rosa," he assures the blonde woman with a kiss he has to stoop to give her. Rosa, Magenta thinks. Rosa, Rosa… ah! Rosa Dillon! _Top_. Duh. "Or ever again." With a final kiss, Top rustles back into the shadows of the alley behind the hospital and disappears, her face reluctant and sad. With difficulty and determination, Magenta shakes off her discomfort. She can feel bad later.

Right now, she has to tell the Boss.

…

"Report," Francine snaps from Joe's armchair, and Barry can't help but flinch. He glances at Iris and sees that she's frowning fiercely over her to-go cup from Jitters, her fingers interlocked around it tightly. Her nails were painted black a while ago, but now they are chipped and some of them look bitten. Barry wants to comfort her somehow, but in this universe where they are near strangers he doesn't know how. She had brought him coffee and a donut from Jitters too, so for now he just offers her a piece of sugary goodness and hopes if nothing else at least her tastebuds will feel better. She shoots him a tense smile as she takes it.

Standing in front of the mantelpiece is a young woman Barry hasn't met yet. She looks barely out of high school, if that, with punky clothes and fading purple dye in her hair. Francine hadn't bothered to introduce either of them before debriefing her.

"Killer Frost's forces are down to Rainbow Raider, Mist, Girder, Peek-a-Boo, Mirror Master, and Deathbolt after the casualties at the latest altercation, which were-"

"That part isn't relevant," Francine interrupts, and Barry flinches again. The purple haired young woman bites her lip and looks away, at the floor. Barry hopes it wasn't anyone she cared about whose death is being brushed off. "Iris, who does that leave with Vibe, to our knowledge?" Iris leans forward and sets her coffee on the table to answer so that she can look at the whole group as she speaks.

"To our knowledge," she repeats carefully. "He's got Black Siren, Plastique, Pied Piper, Turtle, Top, Bug-Eyed Bandit, and Weather Wizard."

"Powers," Francine demands of Chief Singh next. His mouth twists at her tone but he doesn't protest.

"On Killer Frost's side we've got emotional manipulation, poisonous gas, steel skin, teleportation, mirror travel, and lasers," he explains. His steady voice is as familiar as it was in the old timeline when Barry would overhear him describing an upcoming mission to a tactical team down in the bullpen. It's almost comforting. "On Vibe's side there's sonic scream, explosives transmutation, concussive sound waves, slow motion field, vertigo, techno-kinesis, and atmospheric manipulation." Francine nods, dismissive, and turns to address Cecile Horton next, but Chief Singh keeps speaking.

"Peek-a-Boo," he says, his tone steely now. "Shawna Baez, she was a petty thief before all this, didn't usually hurt anyone. I think there's a good chance we could get her to defect-"

"Don't count on it," Francine instructs coldly with a scowl and a glare. Singh meets her glare and tries again.

"Rathaway was really only interested in revenge on his own parents for-"

"I don't care," Francine interrupts. "I'm not looking to rely on the mercies of these mutants, or to extend any of my own to them." There is a long, awful silence. Barry shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Iris is squeezing her coffee cup again, one thumb picking at the chipped polish on the other. The purple haired woman is still standing. Cecile clears her throat and leans forward to speak next, breaking through the thick cloud of discomfort.

"Mist, Deathbolt, and Weather Wizard aren't team players," she informs them all. "They'd be easy to turn against their masters, but not potential double agents like Magenta-"

"Magenta," Francine sneers, and Barry assumes that must be the purple haired woman, "is a special case because she came to us. We're not recruiting, especially not from the enemy." Barry swallows uncomfortably and sets aside his own coffee, rubbing his hands on his jeans. His heart rate seems to have picked up a little but he ignores it. Maybe he's just not as immune to caffeine as he thought.

"-Black Siren and Plastique are long term girlfriends," Cecile continues as if Francine never spoke. "If one of them gets hurt, we can expect the other one to forget all about the turf situation and be out for anyone's blood. Mirror Master and Top are also romantically involved, despite being on opposite sides, but thankfully much less volatile."

"Um, speaking of Mirror Master and Top," the purple haired woman, Magenta (that's fitting), speaks up meekly from where she hasn't moved. "They were scheming outside the hospital earlier today. They've got some sort of plan to take over Central for themselves instead of it being Killer Frost, Vibe, or Sc- ...anyone else." Barry blinks in confusion at her hesitation. He still knows nothing about this 'Scorn' but it seems like whoever they are, they must be the biggest bad around. "They'll let those three all take each other out, and then take over after."

"That's good news," Francine murmurs, finally sounding something other than impatient with all of them. "We can let that happen, see how it turns out. Either those two small fries are right and the big three will take each other out, or Killer Frost and Vibe will exterminate them for disloyalty. Either way, that's at least two less mutants for us to deal with."

That apparently is the last straw of the night for her compatriots. There is a swell of sound as everyone, even Magenta, puts forth a shouted protest, until finally Iris's voice rises above the rest.

"We should at least try to avoid that kind of collateral damage!" she yells at her mother, leaning forward again, her coffee forgotten beside her. Her face is stormy, enraged and in pain. She's still breathtakingly beautiful like that, Barry just as hopelessly besotted with her, but it still makes his throat get all knotted up to see that expression on her face. Barry doesn't think he's ever seen her like this before.

"Collateral damage is unavoidable at this point," Francine dismisses blandly. "We might as well get something out of it." Iris visibly deflates, collapsing back into the couch and looking at her mother with such hurt that Barry has to look away. He knows they're not close in this timeline, and Iris wouldn't need him to fight her battles in any universe, but he still has to help. He takes a deep breath and stands, preparing to speak for the first time.

"Aren't we supposed to be the good guys here?" he asks, looking into each face around the West table beseechingly. "We have to do the right thing, even if no one else does. Especially if no one else does. Especially when it seems too hard. Every person - no matter what their rap sheet looks like - deserves to be saved, and to have a second chance, a chance to change for the better." Barry has to pause here, swallowing down a distant grief for someone he doesn't quite remember, yet. "It's wrong," he continues in a weaker, choked up voice, "to purposely leave someone - anyone - to misfortune no matter what they've done. I know - I _know_ that we all have a little good in us."

Francine watches Barry for a long time, her face flat and unchanging, from Joe's armchair. Barry thinks, hopes, he may have swayed her.

"We don't have the luxury of morality anymore," she finally decides. She gives Barry a brief sympathetic look, but she doesn't add anything else or give any sign that her mind could ever be changed from this. Barry stares at her after she turns away to continue the meeting for long moments, blinking, not sure… She couldn't have meant that. He'll. He'll have to ask again later. They're the good guys. Doing what's right is what they're about, isn't it? What are they if they don't…?

Iris touches Barry's elbow softly, and he snaps away from Francine to look at her instead. She smiles at him again, a little more genuine this time, and guides him back into his seat to wait out the rest of the meeting. She doesn't let go of him once he's sitting (he obviously doesn't even think of shaking her off).

…

It's nearly an hour later, the coffee all gone cold and distasteful and everyone's moods the same, that Barry overhears Iris and Francine talking sharply to each other in the kitchen as the rest of the group begins to clear out of the house. He feels bad but he leans in to listen, hoping maybe Iris is in the process of changing Francine's mind, or maybe they're making up from snapping at each other, or if nothing else maybe he can at least learn something about this 'Scorn' person…

"...agree with what Barry was saying, Mom," Iris is saying firmly. Her no nonsense tone briefly brings a smile to Barry's face; he knows that one all too well. "Everyone can come back from doing bad things. Don't you agree with that? Don't you want to? If there could be any possibility that we could bring Scorn back to the light, or at least just bring him to justice humanely-"

Sounds more than reasonable to Barry, although he doesn't know why Iris would be concerned so specifically with Scorn. But Francine doesn't seem to think so. Something crashes as she slams it down and snarls at her daughter.

"Iris Ann, you need to accept that your father is _gone_ !" she whisper-shouts viciously, making Barry flinch again from his hiding spot even though it's not directed at him and he's not even in the room with her this time. "He died with Wally and Eddie! There's nothing of him to ' _bring back_ ' - Scorn is all that's left."

Barry's blood rushes in his veins. He can barely hear Iris stutter, "I- I don't believe that-" over the sound of it. He thought… Didn't Francine tell him Joe was dead…? How can Joe be a bad guy? He would never hurt anyone - the Joe Barry knows really would rather die than turn away from justice…

Barry slides down the wall where he was leaning to eavesdrop, weak in the knees and dizzy. It's stupid, he thinks, for him to be grieving all over again - for him to have grieved in the first place. He doesn't know this Joe, he reminds himself. He doesn't know this Joe. This isn't his Joe. But the more he repeats it, the less it seems to help, until his vision is tunneling and his hearing seems to have abandoned him entirely. It's quiet and dark inside Barry's mind, and no one is in there with him.

The Joe Barry knew isn't dead. That Joe doesn't even exist.

Barry only vaguely, distantly, registers Iris sliding down to sit next to him at some point, her arm pressed to his as she patiently waits for him to come back. How she knows he's… somewhere else, he doesn't know, but he's grateful that she doesn't try to speak to him yet because he doesn't know what he'd say back. Something either embarrassing or really morbid, probably. Eventually, Barry is able to take a real breath, and turn his head to look at her.

Iris's eyes are wet but her cheeks have been wiped clean. Barry blinks confusedly at her for a few seconds while she smiles sadly at him. She reaches forward then, and wipes his cheeks too. He hadn't realized he'd cried. The skin of her hands is as soft, warm, and sweet smelling as it always has been - as it is in Barry's memories of that other timeline. Her nails may be shorter now, the polish on them not as perfectly maintained, but that seems to matter so little now with her touching him like this. Barry closes his tired, puffy eyes and leans his face into Iris's hand.

He missed her so much. How could he have gone without her for so long?

Slowly, Barry opens his eyes and looks at Iris, the love of his life, that he's finally managed to find again like he always will. She smiles at him again, taking her hand back now that all of his tears are cleared away. Her beautiful brown eyes track all over his face, taking him in for, in this timeline, what is almost like the first time. It feels good to have her gaze on him so steadfastly. He hopes she likes what she sees. He hopes he can still be what she needs, here and now where everything is so different.

"You wanna get out of here?" Iris asks. Barry blinks.

"What, like a date?" he checks, and Iris laughs softly. Her eyes pass back and forth between his again, clearly looking at more than just Barry's appearance, before she decides what to tell him.

"Yeah," she answers. "Like a date. If you want. Take me out somewhere romantic." Barry can't help the grin that stretches his face at that, despite the emotional whiplash he'll be suffering from later. For now, even in the wake of such an existential kind of grief, Barry can only focus on how amazing Iris is, in any and all universes, and how much he would love to take her somewhere romantic.

…

The place they end up is romantic indeed, with little two person tables and light partitions in white. They sit out on the patio, where the evening is lit with plastic tea candles on the tables and torches around the perimeter. Iris orders a chowder and Barry orders a scampi, and while they wait for their food to arrive Iris peers at Barry curiously over the table (a very short distance) and he tries not to act weird. Barry digs in with gusto when the meal comes, if just to have something to do to avoid Iris's too-shrewd gaze. Not that she could ever actually guess what's going on, right?

"Barry," she says, sliding a breadstick around and around the rim of her bowl. "I sort of… I feel like I've known you for my whole life, you know? Like I know you almost as well as- as I knew Wally, my brother."

Barry chokes a little, reflexively slurping the noodle hanging out of his mouth too vigorously and flicking himself in the nose with it with a rude sound. He'd be embarrassed, but Iris laughs so he can't bring himself to mind.

"Is that crazy?" Iris asks, laughing still, leaning closer to him over their intimate little table.

Barry should tell her yes, that's totally crazy. Doesn't make any sense. Absolutely no foundation in truth at all. He should be nervous that the paradox might be collapsing or something, who knows with time travel and alternate universes, really, especially with some jerk running around and breaking things.

But on the other hand. Maybe it's not because of stuff with the paradox. Maybe… it's in spite of the paradox. Maybe even through a complete shift in their lives, in their very realities… Barry and Iris still have a connection somehow, that she can feel through everything that's changed between them. Maybe they're just… meant to be. Like Barry always hoped, like he'd always felt in his heart.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Iris asks when Barry doesn't answer her. Her smile has gone softer now, less mirthful and more just pleased. Happy. As always, the only thing Barry wants for Iris is for her to be happy, so he can't help but let his own smile stretch wider to see it.

"I feel like I've always known you, too, Iris," Barry says finally, brushing off the slight fudge. It's not important, really. After all, once he stops Thawne everything will go back to normal - well, normal for this timeline; a better normal - and no one will ever have to know any different, Iris included. Iris looks relieved at his statement, and she relaxes back into her seat, taking a bite from her soup-sodden breadstick before stirring it around again.

"I think you and Wally would have gotten along," she says, a little wistfully.

"Tell me about him," Barry requests softly, even though he probably already knows a lot about the person that Wally is- or, that he was, in this timeline (but not forever; Barry just has to get Thawne to undo it). Iris smiles at him again, a little sad but grateful for his gentle interest, bittersweet and so beautiful.

"Dad was so freaked when they brought him home from the hospital," she says with a nostalgic sigh. She shakes her head, her brown eyes shining. "Wally was a month premature, and he was so tiny Dad could hold him with one hand…" She stops, staring down into her chowder where her breadstick has begun to wilt after being left for so long. It doesn't seem like she'll be able to continue.

Barry reaches forward across the table to brush her hair back out of her face (and out of danger of falling into the cooling soup). She looks up at his touch, wiping away a tear track and rolling her eyes at herself. Barry shakes his head at that.

"No, it's okay, I get it," he tells her. He can't tell her how, not really, now that his parents are alive and she doesn't know that they weren't, but she seems to sense the truth in his words and take comfort in it. After a minute Iris swallows down her grief and starts on a new story instead, although this time she has a different tone - determined, like this is a lead up to something else.

"This might be hard to believe," she says, and Barry privately doubts it, but of course doesn't say anything to give it away, "but my mother is an addict. She started getting clean when she was going to have Wally, and she and my Dad did all the twelve steps together. There's this thing you say when you're going through the program - the Serenity Prayer."

Barry nods for her to continue. He knows the prayer too. His Mom learned it from anxiety counseling.

"Well," Iris goes on. She gets that hard look on her face, determined and strong and just as much of a hero as Barry has ever been as the Flash - and more stalwart by far. "I don't get it. I don't understand how someone can look at something that- that just shouldn't be, and decide that there's nothing they can do about it. To accept it." She meets Barry's eyes, steady and true, almost challenging.

Barry is more than willing to meet her.

"You're right," he says, his tone just as uncompromising. "I don't get it either, and I never have. Iris, I know this doesn't really make sense, but I know what it's like to lose people like you have, and I would never want that for you." He takes her hands over the table. "I could never accept that for you. I won't. I promise, I'll do everything I can to change this."

And Barry means more than just Joe being Scorn. If he's right, and all of this badness is because of Thawne pulling crap on them, then he's going to fix all of it - Joe, Wally, maybe even Eddie this time around (even if that might mean he can't be with Iris after all), and Cisco and Caitlin too.

Iris starts to respond, wiping away tears again, with the hand that Barry isn't holding, offering him a wet but determined smile - just when he thought he couldn't love her more-

A writhing circle of blue plasma opens behind her - a vibe portal. For once in his life Barry reacts too slowly, and Cisco- _Vibe_ has one arm around Iris and one pointed threateningly at Barry by the time Barry is on his feet.

Vibe, just like Cisco but oh so different, cuts Barry a sharp smirk from behind his costume's familiar goggles, and quips, "Miss West is really _so_ sorry to disappear on you."

And then he steps backward into his vibe with her, and they do just that.

 

* * *

 

**_Next week on The Flash:_ **

_Episode 3.05 "A Father Scorned" - **a double length midseason finale!** _

_Joe and Francine sit on the West couch together, holding hands. Francine looks a little younger, but tired. Their foreheads touch as they recite the Serenity Prayer together._

_Wally West lies on the floor of Jitters behind an overturned table. Iris is on her knees next to him, holding his hand._

_In a dusk-darkened, empty street, Joe faces off with Multiplex. Multiplex holds up his hands, and Joe shoots him._


	5. 3.05 "A Father Scorned"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe West lives long enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: more prejudiced language against the same fictional group (still on par with x-men), semi-graphic violence, minor character death, police brutality toward the end

**_Previously on The Flash:_ **

_The organized meta crime group known as the Rogues, led by Vibe and Killer Frost, turn to face a police barricade outside of the Rathaway estate they have just robbed and destroyed. Vibe laughs at the cops, among them Joe West and Eddie Thawne._

_Iris sits across from Barry, telling him about her family before everything went wrong. "Dad could hold Wally in one hand," she describes wistfully. "He and mom went through the twelve steps together."_

 

* * *

  

1995

Iris hides quietly around the bannister on the stairs, peering down at her mom and dad as they whisper to each other. Iris is supposed to be in bed and fast asleep already, Daddy even already finished telling her a story and tucking her in, but she couldn't sleep until she made sure that they weren't going to fight again. For once, it doesn't look like Iris will have to make them stop.

"Another baby?" Daddy is saying. His voice is all soft and cracky like it gets when he's really sad or really proud of Iris and holds her just a little bit too tight to tell her how much he loves her. She never judges him though, because she loves him just as much. He swallows a bunch and puts his hand on Mommy's belly. Iris puts her hands over her mouth to keep from making any noise that might interrupt them. She knows they love each other just as much as she loves them too, but recently they have been having a hard time showing each other. The last thing she wants to do is get in the way of them being all gross and sweet again.

"You're really going to have to stop now, Francine," Daddy says next, and his voice is a little sterner now but still mostly soft. "I mean for good, this time."

"I know, baby," Mommy says back. Her voice is all thick and gummy like when she cries, even though she's not crying - at least not that Iris can see from her hiding spot. She does sound sad though, but happy too. That's a little weird and confusing, but Daddy puts a hand around her shoulders and hugs her close so Iris isn't going to ask. "I know. And I- I really want to this time, Joe. I want to be a better mother. For this new baby, and for Iris." She pauses to look deeply into Daddy's eyes. Embarrassing, but right. "And for you."

Daddy kisses her firmly on the forehead, and they exchange 'I love you's. Satisfied, Iris creeps back up to bed.

…

"...accept the things we cannot change," Joe murmurs to Francine as she whispers the same back to him, their foreheads pressed together and their eyes closed, breathing each other in as they cling to each other on their couch, "the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time…"

It was Joe's idea, the first time, to change 'I' in the prayer to 'we'. He wanted to make as sure as possible that Francine knew that she wasn't in this alone, that for all the pressure he has always put on her to get clean he would never expect her to do it by herself, nor would he want her to try it that way. He's doing all twelve steps with her, goes to her DAA meetings with her when he's not caught up at work. She has a sponsor from the group, but Joe tries his best to be another one for her at home, and when she's having a hard time they sit together like this and they say the Serenity Prayer to each other, and sometimes other prayers and sayings and affirmations, and Joe pets over Francine's short hair as comfortingly and supportively as he can manage to make the gesture.

Today, when they're done, Joe lays across Francine's lap with his ear pressed against her slowly growing belly. She runs one finger along his nose and his cheeks as he listens. There's not much the naked ear can hear yet, but Joe still imagines that the baby's heartbeat is strong in there.

"You think it's gonna be another baby girl?" he asks Francine, keeping his voice low and soft so as not to disrupt the atmosphere they have going. "Or a boy?" Francine smiles down at him and he smiles back, basking in her love and sending his own right back at her.

"Let's let it be a surprise," she says finally, looking serious. "Like everything else from now on, we should take this baby one day at a time and accept it however it comes to us." Joe kisses Francine's palm as she cups his face.

A surprise it is.

…

Francine reads the newspaper at the kitchen table while Joe and Iris make breakfast together. Her feet are starting to swell with the added weight of her round belly, so it's best if she stands as little as possible now.

Which means that Joe is going to have quite the mess to clean up all by himself later, and he'll have no one to blame but himself. But he'll worry about that later. For now, he tosses another piece of diced zucchini at Iris because she wants to catch one in her mouth.

"What are we gonna name your baby sibling, kiddo?" Joe asks her after he catches Francine's eye over the paper and can't help thinking excitedly about how soon the baby is coming. Iris has been mostly excited too, but every now and then Joe catches her pouting about not having as much of their attention. He figures the best way to solve that is to make her an integral part of the baby stuff. "How about we just have two Irises, what do you think of that?"

"No!" Iris says, laughing and throwing a handful of shredded carrots at Joe. A couple of them fall into the eggs he's scrambling, but it's all going to go in omelettes anyway so that's fine. Joe's about to suggest something more serious and make a real effort to draw Iris in to helping when he looks up and sees a sly look crossing her face - or at least as sly a look as someone her age can make. "I think Bertha," she says, but she can't keep up the face, bursting into childish laughter almost before she finishes.

Alright, if that's what they're playing this morning, Joe's game.

"No, I like Clarence," he says, makes sure to draw out the vowel to make it sound silly. Iris claps her hands with glee, something she has always done and Joe hopes she will always do, just because it's the absolute cutest thing ever.

"Bob!" she shouts.

"Elmer," says Joe back, and this time he's the one to interrupt himself with a giggle when Iris makes a yuck face at him.

"Like the glue?" she squeals, echoing his giggle. "How about Wally." She draws out her vowel too, putting on a weird non-accent. Francine sighs, but Joe can tell she's charmed by how silly her family can be.

"Gertrude," he says.

"Gretel!" says Iris.

"Donald."

Needless to say, the carpooling mom waiting for Iris outside is a little miffed when Joe brings his daughter out to bundle into her car five minutes late, Iris still randomly bursting out into shrieking little girl laughter or shouting out some less than graceful sounding name. Joe hopes she doesn't say the name of anyone the grumpy mom knows.

Joe goes back inside and sits beside his wife with a mug of coffee, leaving the cleaning up for as long as he can get away with.

"I was really kind of thinking," he starts, taking her hand, no longer joking. "Maybe Francine or Francis, after their beautiful, strong mother." Francine's cheeks go lightly red and she won't meet his eyes, but god help him Joe will make sure she knows how amazing she is if it kills him. But aside from the bashfulness, Francine's nose also wrinkles like it does whenever Joe makes decor suggestions. Joe laughs and kisses her there. Alright, so she genuinely doesn't like the name idea. It was worth a try.

"I actually kind of liked Wally," Francine tells him eventually, and he makes a thoughtful noise through his mouthful of coffee.

"Wallace for a boy then," he agrees with a smile.

"What about for a girl?" she asks.

Joe tries to come up with a serious answer. Really, he does. But what comes out of his twitching mouth is-

"Walburga."

Francine dips her fingers into her orange juice and flicks them in Joe's face in reprimand. He grabs her hand and licks them clean, and silently convinces her to help him put off the cleaning for longer.

…

The hospital bed really isn't big enough for all three of them, even now that Francine's belly doesn't have a whole other person inside it anymore, but that does nothing to stop all three of them from lying on it together. Francine is sweaty and a little gross, but neither Joe or Iris cares, pressed up against her on either side, all three of them sound asleep.

Two nurses come in quietly, unsure who they should wake first, but Joe relieves them of the decision by blinking slowly awake. He sees his baby in one of their arms and his heart jumps up in his chest. He takes a deep breath so he can chill out a little and extricate himself up out of the bed without disturbing his girls, already reaching out for the baby before he's on his feet. The nurses smile and hand it over.

"Congratulations," one of them whispers, following Joe's lead not to wake Francine and Iris. "It's a boy. Have you decided on a name yet?"

"Wally," Joe whispers back, not sparing the nurse the barest glance, eyes only for his tiny, perfect son. "Wallace West."

 

2002

Iris and Wally are huddled together on the West couch, wrapped up together in one fluffy blanket. It's very early morning, still dark outside, not even a chirp from the earliest birds yet. The television is on a news channel, the volume down so low they might as well have put it on mute. Underneath a pretty mixed race woman talking in front of an animated map of the midwest, school cancellations are scrolling in alphabetical order. When Wally and Iris had snuck downstairs and turned the news on, it was on the S's and now it's slowly ticking through the W's. They have to wait for it to get back to the C's to see if they have a snow day or not, and the wait is the _worst_.

Finally they get all the way back to the A's… the B's… the C's… how many schools can there be before Central Elementary and Middle, c'mon c'mon… Yes!

Wally and Iris abandon all attempt at stealth when they see their school on the cancellation list, jumping up from their blanket bundle, jumping up and down on the couch and screaming for joy. Snow day!

"Your children are screaming at five in the morning, Joe West," Francine mutters at her husband upstairs in their bed, both of them having been woken up by the raucous celebration. Next to her Joe groans with feeling, rubbing a rough hand over his face.

But still he says, "Gotta love the little devils," and the fondness in his voice is warmer than the cocoon of warmth in the bed they'll have to leave soon.

It's Joe's turn to call in to work to stay home with the kids. Chief Singh puts up a token complaint, but he's always adored Iris and Wally and it's all just for show. He'll probably have some treat for Joe to take home to them when he comes back in just because he was given another reminder of their existence, the sucker.

They have waffles with nutella for breakfast, Joe smearing a dollop on Francine's nose just so that he can kiss it off of her before she leaves for work.

Next up is a snowball fight in the yard, the three of them all bundled up in scratchy wool and scooping snow up into their arms as they run around each other. At some point, Wally becomes a visiting Prince and Joe pulls him around on the sled as his envoy as Iris, a spy assassin, pelts them with snowballs. When Iris gets Wally with one right in the kisser, Joe first checks to make sure the kid is both okay and not upset about getting creamed, and then he defects and carries Iris around on his shoulders instead, both of them crowing about her victory while Wally swears vengeance.

They have sandwiches and hot chocolate ("With extra, extra marshmallows, Daddy!") for lunch, and then the kiddos fall asleep unceremoniously on the couch.

Joe watches them nap, his eyes getting a little misty with how much he loves them, how much he absolutely adores being a father, as the house fills up with the smell of the soup fixings he put in the crock pot to be ready for a nice warming family dinner when Francine gets home from work.

 

2012

They make just as big a to-do when Wally graduates from high school as they had for Iris. They all go shopping for his formal outfit together just like they had with her, and he is unsurprisingly just as particular about the details as she was. They take half a million pictures of him in it, and in his cap and gown, before the ceremony, and they take half a million more of him walking from the audience - although those are all blurred to hell from how little attention whoever had been taking them had been paying attention in favor of watching Wally in real time and screaming themselves hoarse to cheer for him. When he's finally free from the ceremony of it all, Wally comes careening down the aisle, right into his sister's arms, and they swing each other around, both pretending not to cry. Joe and Francine are quick to join in on the hug as soon as their babies, both so grown up now, stop moving long enough for them to get their hands on them too. They gush and gush, again, about how proud they are and how handsome Wally looks in his cap and gown, and his perfect ensemble underneath.

They go out to a fancy restaurant, somewhere they had to make reservations, for a celebratory dinner. Everything is delicious and beautiful, offset nicely by the crisp white tablecloth and the crystal wine glasses that none of them are using. Joe and Francine and Iris all crow to the pretty waitress about how it's Wally's big day, how he graduated at the top of his class with honors, and he smiles at her bashfully when she gives him a free cup of chocolate mousse as congratulations.

She also gives Wally her number. Iris attempts to tease, but Wally is way too happy to be embarrassed.

At home, there's mail waiting for them, chief among them an acceptance letter for Wally, to his first choice school.

 

2013

Iris brings Joe lunch at work. It's nothing unusual, something she's done a million and two times before. The only thing different this time is that Joe's new partner, transferred over from Keystone, looks up from his paperwork when she comes in and seems like he can't bring himself to look away.

"Can I help you, Detective Pretty Boy?" Iris quips when she catches him staring, and he blushes and looks away even though it is quite clear that Iris is not perturbed to have caught his attention.

She even winks at him when she leaves. Good grief.

"Don't do this to me," Joe says to Eddie, his voice dull, already resigned.

"What?" says Eddie, giving Joe wide innocent eyes.

Good grief.

…

Iris is getting ready for her first date with Detective Eddie Thawne, dad's new partner at work. Wally is sitting on her bed, watching her as she fusses in the mirror. He's sitting on more than a few outfits, but Iris can't care because she has chosen what she has on and she is going to stick to it this time or she'll never be ready.

"You're spending an awful long time on your makeup for, uh, 'Detective Pretty Boy'," Wally teases with a smirk.

"I have to make sure I'm prettier than he is for once," Iris mutters back, adjusting her necklace pointlessly.

"Ew, oh my god," Wally says, his feigned disgust falling short of the mark when he laughs through it. Iris just fluffs her hair, and makes sure to shove her brother on her way out.

Eddie is already waiting in the door when Iris gets downstairs, and Joe is standing by the couch to glare at him half-heartedly. Any shovel talk he could try to give Eddie would be completely useless because Eddie already knows perfectly well what Joe is capable of, so Joe isn't sure what to do instead. Shifting awkwardly from foot to foot behind the bouquet he brought and not coming all the way inside, Eddie seems just as unsure of the situation's protocol.

Biting back her laugh at the two of them, Iris turns to her mother first instead - her mother, who is not attempting to hide her own amusement. The two women meet each other's eyes, roll them, and Francine says, " _Men_ ," both disparaging and affectionate.

Iris kisses her mother on the cheek, and then her father, and shoves Wally again where he's just come down the stairs behind her. Then she kisses Eddie on the cheek too, and takes his arm.

…

Eddie sits with them around the dining room table for a family dinner, still just as wide eyed and breathless at having been invited as he was when Iris had let him know his welcome almost an entire week ago now. Iris reluctantly takes a break from teasing her adorable boyfriend over being so eager to please. Luckily, she has another target so it's not as hard to lay off him as it could have been.

"So, have you told Dad about your little nerd-on yet?" she demands of her brother, and delights in how he blushes and drops the spoon back into the mashed potatoes with a dull splat.

"What- _nerd-on_?" he splutters. "Wow, that's classy-"

"Yeah," Iris interrupts with a grin. "Your big ol' nerd crush. Your geekmate."

"Shut _up_ , Iris!" Wally whines. "It's not like that. And yes, I have told Mom and Dad about my _friend_ from class."

"I don't know, Wall," says Joe with a laugh hiding in his voice. Iris grins across the table at him. He's always been glad to join in on her antics. "You keep talking about all these _sparks-_ "

"He's an electrical engineer, Dad!" Wally all but shrieks, growing redder by the second. "I mean the literal kind!"

"Is it always like this?" Eddie asks Iris later, as they put on their coats because she's going with him to his place (again). Iris kisses him with a grin and a nod.

"Why?" she wonders. "Scaring you off?"

Eddie shakes his head, eyes shining, perfectly besotted.

 

2014

_[a broadcast on Central Picture News._

_A montage of still photos of the derelict STAR Labs. Again. The anchor describes documented extreme fluctuations in both temperature and radiation levels. Witness accounts claim ice deposits and fires in the same days as well as placing Hartley Rathaway, one of the lead scientists responsible for the particle accelerator that exploded last year, regularly on scene. Police remain interested in questioning Rathaway and the other scientists on the event, though they still have not made any charges. Civilians are urged to stay away from the Labs because of the radiation._

_Cell phone footage of Clyde and Mark Mardon. Again. The video is from after a bank robbery instead of during, for once. The Mardon brothers are laughing as they leave their latest target, performing unflattering imitations of their hostages for each other as they saunter away with bags full of money. The anchor lists the average rate of injuries and deaths at Mardon robberies, and redundantly mentions the Mardon brothers' clear and present lack of remorse for their crimes.]_

…

"West, Thawne!" Chief Singh barks from above the bullpen, gesturing sharply when they look up for them to join him in his office. He hands them both bulging files when they get there, shakes his head when they start to take their seats.

"The evidence always points to this guy, Danton Black, but he never has a less than airtight alibi," he says, clearly frustrated. "You guys are my best detectives. I need you to crack this one."

Joe and Eddie pour over Black's alibis, all of them with some kind of hard evidentiary proof to stand up strong to the equally hard evidence they have placing Black at the scene of several robberies. They watch two conflicting security tapes over and over again. Surely one or the other of them has to have been tampered with.

They bring Black in. They interrogate him. They use every trick they've got, and between the two of them that's a lot. They call in favors with digital forensics to get a second set of skilled eyes on the footage from sister departments and C.I.s. Even with all of that, it's no dice. All the tapes they have in evidence are legit, incriminations and alibis alike.

"He must have powers," says Eddie eventually, though they had half been working this hard just out of hope this could be a normal case.

They switch tracks in interrogation, aiming now to get Black to confess to his ability instead of to the crimes directly - not that they know what they'll do then. But it's irrelevant, because he doesn't crack. They have to release him.

He smiles smugly for the media cameras as they march him out the front, and then when they escort him around the side of the building where the cab the department had to order for him for his inconvenience is waiting, Danton Black splits into seven of himself. Seven versions of the same acquitted but guilty criminal give them a jaunty wave before merging back into one and sliding into the cab and driving away.

…

Singh assigns them to another weirdo robbery case, despite the fact that they couldn't end up ever making the last batch stick to Black. There's no conflicting evidence on this one, only security video of the woman appearing, taking her fill, and disappearing again like she was never there, never once so much as breathing on a door or a window.

They case her out with good old fashioned psychological profiling. They're not specialists in it, but a good detective can get into a criminal's head well enough, and they pinpoint her within the week - Shawna Baez, and her next target. They stake it out - an unmarked car, binoculars, and soggy sandwiches in the dark. It's almost like old times, until Eddie's reading Baez her rights while Joe cuffs her, and she's gone in a poof of black smoke.

It's the same story half a dozen times more before Singh makes them give it up.

…

"No teleportation or multiplying with this one," Singh says wearily when he hands Joe and Eddie the next powered case. There have been a few normal ones in between, but the unenhanced criminal seems to be a dying breed. It would be good news if they weren't being replaced by a more evolved version. "She just screams. If you can silence her you can bring her in, and… Well. I guess we'll figure out how to keep her here when she gets here."

Laurel Lance's crimes lay mostly in the realm of extreme vandalism, but she seems to delight in human collateral damage. Joe gets a little ill every time he hears about what she's done, because the last time he heard anything about a Laurel Lance she was a high profile good guy lawyer sticking up for the little guys all the way over in Starling City. He doesn't know what she was doing here when the particle accelerator explosion hit, but apparently it changed more than just her vocal chords.

They corner her in the warehouse district, thankfully towards the sparser end, and they split up when they get her in an empty building, Eddie going in the front and Joe around to the back. Eddie attracts her attention when they converge on her in a stairwell landing, taunting her as well as someone as sweet as him can manage. She opens her mouth to scream, and Joe kocks her in the back of the head with the butt of his gun.

"...Did we get her?" Eddie wonders when she falls.

"Seems too easy, doesn't it?" Joe admits, kneeling to put the cuffs on, Eddie peering curiously over his shoulder at the first mutant they've managed to get a solid hand on.

It was indeed too easy.

Lance blasts them with a sonic scream when they're both leaned in close, before Joe gets a chance to secure the cuffs. He yells in pain and claps his hands over his ears, falling away from her towards the door. He's convulsing there on the ground, helpless to do anything as he watches Eddie tip backwards and fall down the stairs.

When she's done screaming, Lance giggles. She blows Joe a kiss, and steps over Eddie's unconscious body as she leaves.

…

Joe and Eddie are lying in separate beds in the same hospital room, both awake but not incredibly happy about it. Iris is sitting on Eddie's bed, brushing her hair out of her face as she peers worriedly down at him, and Joe stares off into space to give them the facsimile of privacy. His eyes are drooping a little, and his considering dropping back off into sleep when Eddie suddenly blurts out, "Will you marry me?" and he becomes suddenly very awake.

"What?" Iris breathes. Joe looks his daughter over, judging her reaction. Her face is drawn in shock, but she hasn't pulled away from Eddie at all, looks like maybe she might even have leaned in closer to him, her hand where it hand been resting against his chest now closed around a fistful of his crinkly hospital gown. She's surprised, but it certainly seems not to be in a bad way.

"I, uh," Eddie tries to sit up, but Iris won't let him. "I already have a ring. It's- I've got it," he laughs nervously, "in my jacket pocket, actually. I was, you know, waiting for the right time. The perfect time. But after… Well, that seems so silly now, you know?" He looks deeply up into Iris's eyes, those crystal blues as earnest as ever.

Iris nods tearfully, with a shaky but blinding smile, waiting for him to continue. Eddie smiles back, his smaller, gentler, relieved.

"I want to marry you, baby," he states, lifting his other hand so that he's cupping both sides of Iris's face now. "And if you want to marry me too, why should we wait for some perfect moment? So… Iris Ann West, will you marry me?"

"Yes," Iris answers immediately, her voice wobbly but unhesitating. She holds both of Eddie's hands in both of her own before kissing each of his palms and then brushing her cheeks from her happy tears. Joe gruffly blinks away his own tears. His baby girl, getting married. He doesn't think he could ask for a better man for her than his partner either - his partner who was already close to like a son to him, who he has been proud of and protective of, who has sought his approval for its own sake and not just as his senior colleague or as his girlfriend's father.

Eddie gestures over at the chair by the door where his entry clothes are folded neatly, and Iris practically leaps off the bed to go digging through the pockets. The little velvet box she finds is exactly as expected, and she brings it back over to her imminent fiancé.

"I won't make you do the down on one knee bit, considering," she says with a sideways grin as she perches back on his bed with him and hands him the box. "But you will be the one to open this and put that on my finger."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Eddie says, his voice warm and glowing, and even though he must still be in pain he looks nothing but absolutely in love. He pops open the box and shows Iris the ring inside before taking it out. She lays her hand delicately in his, and he slides the ring onto her finger reverently.

There's a moment of heavy, romantic silence before Iris squeals with joy and claps her hands like she does. Joe feels like his heart might just burst right out of his chest as his daughter bounds over to his hospital bed and shoves her hand in his face to show him.

"I'm so happy for you, baby," he chokes out. He takes her hand in his, ostensibly so that he can actually see the ring she's brandishing, but really just because he wants to hold her.

"We should have an engagement party!" she gushes. "Oh… That is if you guys can get the time off…?"

"Don't worry about it," Joe assures her. "Singh gave us paid leave for this."

"I think he feels guilty," Eddie laughs from the other bed, doing wonders for downplaying their injuries - which they had made sure Iris, Francine, and Wally had all gotten a rather abridged explanation of.

Iris squeals and claps again, jumping a little in place, more excited than Joe can remember seeing her off the top of his aching head. She kisses him sloppily on his scratchy cheek, then kisses Eddie just as sloppily on his grinning mouth, and rushes out of the room. No doubt she is going to go shove her newly adorned finger in her mother's and brother's faces too.

Eddie gives Joe a somewhat sheepish look, but he doesn't need to worry. Joe is happy for them yes, but also relieved - _grateful_ \- that they all have something good and pure, something happy and light to look forward to, when everything else has been so dark.

…

The engagement party is held at the West house, and the guests mostly consist of Iris's coworkers, a few old friends from college, and officers - Joe and Eddie's coworkers. Inevitably, the conversation after the announcement and the champagne is passed around ends up on shop.

"I don't know what it is," Joe mentions idly to a couple of the guys who have been put regularly on these weirdo cases like Joe and Eddie have. He's been thinking about suggesting a specialized taskforce to Singh - maybe if they focus in on just this crap they'll finally be able to crack one of them. "I mean I knew Laurel Lance before, in passing you know." The guys all nod and hum along, to vague to be sympathetic really, but supportive of Joe's point. "That mutation from that radiation from the explosion must make 'em go bad somehow, along with whatever else it did."

"Dad," Iris says sharply from his side, where he hadn't noticed her attentively listening in. "You have to know that doesn't make any sense. And it's not fair. You can't say everyone affected by the accelerator radiation is evil when by virtue of your job you've only ever come into contact with those of them that are criminals. There could easily be good ones out there too."

"Don't use that journalist tone on me," Joe snaps back at her without meaning to. "You think there are good mutants out there? Well, you let me know when you see one."

Iris gives him a look of incredulous disgust, and Joe blinks at it. Hurt he would have expected, but this… He's never seen this on Iris's face before, much less directed at him. He feels bad for making her feel that way, feels wretched with her looking at him like that, but on the other hand he knows he didn't say something unfounded.

Eddie pulls Iris away by her elbow as she opens her mouth to continue the argument.

When Joe apologizes later, he apologizes for ruining her party.

…

David has never _loved_ getting visits from the DA's office - cops and lawyers, even prosecutors, tend not to love each other. But even with that healthy halfway performative distaste, David has never dreaded a visit from the DA's office before like he's started to now. Cecile Horton, the DA's liaison is, after all, both friendly and professional, with a firm handshake and great taste in coffee. It's just that nowadays, she's always bringing even worse news to add to the pile of bad David is already buried under.

"I don't agree with it either, David," she's saying now, after delivering the DA's demand for a full scale raid on the STAR Labs ruins and the responsible scientists they believe are still there. "But they're not going to take no for an answer this time."

"But," David tries. He has to try, even though he knows there's nothing really that Cecile can do at this point. "The accelerator explosion was an accident." Cecile shrugs helplessly.

"Negligence," she suggests.

"Negligence," David repeats wearily. He sighs, rubbing his face as if he can make this go away. "No one knows what's going on in there, Cecile. I don't have any idea what I'd be sending my guys into."

"I know," Cecile acknowledges, with more genuine sympathy than David has heard from her yet. "But I don't think you're being given a choice here."

Of course she's right, like usual.

David has the guys gear up.

They don't come back. Not even in bags.

…

The mutants organize. As if they weren't formidable enough already. Their first target as a group are the Rathaways, which makes sense given one of their number is the Rathaways' mistreated kid. David figures the assholes deserve it, but it's not for him to judge, not to mention he knows that the organization won't be stopping there. Groups like these never do, and that's leaving aside their other members - the Weather Wizards, a human bomb, the lady that put West and Thawne on leave for all those weeks…

David has never been so wracked with guilt over the decisions he has to make in his position before. It's always been tough call after tough call up here, but never like this. Never _knowing_ , beyond doubt, that the men he sends out _will_ die - or whatever it is that happens to you when Vibe gets you. But he can't let it keep him from doing his job, from trying to see that people are protected as much as he can. It's their duty to serve and protect, and they all signed up knowing they might die trying.

David gears up with them this time. It would be noble probably, if there was anything more than what amounts to a skeleton crew of officers left after the raid on STAR Labs. David isn't a Chief going to the gallows with his people, now, he's just another number. They strap on heavy protective gear, even knowing most of it is all but obsolete. The station is grim and silent. Before they leave there's a long moment where they all look around at each other.

For many of them, the faces of their fellow officers around them now will be one of the last things they see on this earth.

They arrive on the scene of a crumbling Rathaway estate, the third to meet this fate at the hands of Vibe's organization. They set up a barricade according to protocol, for all the good it'll do anybody. All of them standing behind the open doors of their marked cars with their guns drawn, only just shy of helpless. David, as the highest ranking officer, is the one who has to attempt to negotiate.

Into the megaphone, he says, "Just surrender and nobody has to get hurt." It's half-hearted at the most generous description, a plea at the realest. Vibe laughs, nothing like the nerdy-looking kid who opened the particle accelerator with the rest. Now he's sharp, and otherworldly. The members of his organization, lined up around him in a vague formation like a pack, echoes him.

"How's this for hurt?" a tall strawberry blonde woman in red taunts. With a wicked grin she tosses something at the police barricade, and David infers this must be the mutant known as Plastique, and that must be-

"Grenade!" he shouts, diving behind his car door and hoping all his other officers are quick enough to do the same in time. It's not quite accurate - Plastique has no need for actual grenades. For all they know, the explosive she threw could have been a pen a few seconds ago.

When the smoke clears, the shooting starts. It's not how David usually likes to do things, but he's not about to call to hold fire. Vibe certainly won't be giving any orders like that. As far as David's concerned they're lucky they're not all already gone.

It's chaos - gunfire, explosions, strong targeted gusts of wind, projectile ice, the constant shriek of radio interference. One of the mutants goes down, shot in the head, and David is more concerned with taking note of who shot them than who they are - Joe, Detective Joe West. Up front and center, with the most direct line of sight, and one of the best shots on the force to boot, but it's still deeply impressive that he - Detective Thawne, too, at his side - is keeping his cool so well.

It's only when the temperature spikes that David bothers to notice who was hit. It was one of the Weather Wizards, the Mardon brothers - Clyde, David thinks. Mark caught his brother's body as it fell backwards and is holding him limp in his arms now, glaring out at Joe with a devastated rage. David almost feels for him, really.

But it's getting so hot David can feel his clothes start to stick to him, mirages wafting up in front of his eyes and making it impossible to keep shooting, the air growing so thin and dry David's eyes sting and his throat scrapes. Officers who had bare arms on the metal of their doors yelp and fall back, others beginning to collapse in the dry heat regardless. David starts to feel dizzy and cotton-mouthed, his gun sliding out of his suddenly weak and sweaty hands. He can feel his tongue swelling, pressing up against his teeth, his lips cracking, god he can't _breathe_ -

The officers aren't the only ones affected by Mark Mardon's wrath. Even as David sinks blearily onto the ground, nauseous and… muffled, he sees Rathaway and another kid about his age both faint. He hears Killer Frost screaming as if from down a very long, narrow hallway, watches as she steams as if she's literally evaporating. Firestorm stands over her, not touching, must be worried he'll make it worse, yelling at Vibe.

The mirages intensify, turn blue, and then the mutants are gone and the air goes back to its usual early fall mildness - feels painfully freezing after that. A whimper claws its way out of David's throat, his head throbbing and his lungs cramping, vision spotty and black. He fumbles with numb fingers for the dispatch talkie on his shoulder.

"Amb'l'nce," he chokes out into it.

And then he lays down on the warm ground, shivering violently, and doesn't know what else happens.

…

It's only a matter of time before the FEDs step in, but they don't send the FBI which might have been halfway livable. Oh no, it has to be the military.

Joe and Eddie work at Joe's home whenever they can manage now, because General Eiling is a first class asshole who seems infinitely more interested in escalating the situation than with solving cases or apprehending criminals (go figure).

They've got boxes of case files spread out between and around them at the West dining table, trying to put together patterns in mutant behavior that might hint at some exploitable weaknesses. There has to be some way to catch and/or detain at least some of them, and there have to be clues as to how in here somewhere…

Eddie looks up when Iris comes in. She seems excited, though she's reigning herself in in deference to the oppressively quiet atmosphere around him and Joe, and he offers her a tired but genuine smile.

"I just finished an interview at work for a full time anchor position!" she says, her voice muted but enthusiastic, a whispered shout. She doesn't quite do her clapping thing, but Eddie can see she's getting close. God, he loves her so much.

"That's great, baby," says Joe. His voice is dull, distracted, and he doesn't look up from the paperwork he's pouring over. Iris visibly wilts at his lackluster response, and Eddie's heart breaks a little bit. He catches her eye to mouth _I'm proud of you_ , glad to see it gets her smiling again, if not as blindingly as when she came in.

"Dad," comes Wally's voice, hesitant like Eddie has never heard him. He gets why Joe has become so single-minded, feels the same way most of the time, but he hates to see what it's doing to his family. "We- We should take Iris out to celebrate."

"I didn't get the position yet," Iris argues, but she doesn't mean it.

"Nonsense," says Francine, joining her son. "Let's go to dinner."

"Let's go to dinner," Eddie repeats, just shy of pointedly, eyeballing Joe across the table. Joe either doesn't notice the implicit reprimand or doesn't care; all he does is hum vaguely, not really agreement but the best it seems they're going to get. The other three Wests exchange somewhat helpless looks, and clear out, leaving Eddie alone again with Joe and work.

"Joe," he says, more firmly. " _Joe_ ," until he finally pauses and looks up with irritation. Eddie sighs at him, scolding, but also sad. "Listen… I know a lot of people have died. But, Joe. _We're_ still alive. We should act like it, at least sometimes." He glares past his own muted grief for their fallen colleagues, for the civilians they couldn't save, hoping Joe will take his point…

"You're right," Joe sighs, and Eddie feels like he can breathe again, if just for a second. "You're right, Eddie, I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me, partner," Eddie says, and laughs at Joe's grimace. He smiles at Joe's back as Joe grumblingly gets up and heads upstairs to talk to Iris, glad just knowing that they're all here and okay for another day.

…

"There's a new drink named after the PD," Iris is saying as she holds open the door for the group of them to file into Jitters, where she had decided to go for refreshments for celebrating her anchor interview. "And then after, there's this new exhibit at the art museum. We were gonna do it for date night, but the more the merrier when it comes to getting a little culture!"

They've just sat down at a table with their drinks and pastries - Iris, Eddie, Joe, Francine, and Wally - when the door blows in with a gust of torrential rain despite the calm sunny skies. It happens too quick- Eddie just happens to be the one with his back to the door and- the icicle juts out from his chest-

Iris screams.

"Get down!" Joe roars, to his family, and to the cafe in general. People shout and dive under their tables as hail begins to fall all around them, snow swirling around Mark Mardon standing in the broken doorway. Joe pulls his gun, doesn't wait for more provocation before he starts shooting. The rounds blend in with the cacophony around them of shattering glass and ice and terrified civilians.

Joe knows he hasn't hit him, but something makes Mardon twitch. With a snarl he blasts the place with wind and snow and makes a strategic retreat. Joe supposes Vibe must have tightened the leash somehow, but he doesn't really care. He goes back to his family, huddled behind their overturned table just like he directed them. Iris is crying over Eddie's body - he was dead on impact - and she and Francine are each holding one of Wally's hands and there- there shouldn't be that much blood… There shouldn't- Eddie didn't bleed, why-

Wally's face is pale, and he is quietly gasping. Joe can't tell where the blood is coming from but - shit - there's so much, it's spreading out in a dark puddle out from underneath his son - his smart, generous, loyal baby boy - staining the knees of his wife and daughter, Wally's mother and sister- and Wally meets his eyes and his mouth moves and no sound comes out-

Joe is out the door before he knows it, his gun held up, preceding him, his fingers numb but tight on the trigger. He hears, but doesn't register, Francine furiously screaming after him to come back.

He's going to fucking kill Mark Mardon. He's going to kill him, and watch him die, just the same way as his son.

…

Mardon is nowhere to be found outside of Jitters, or the surrounding areas that Joe single-mindedly and single-handedly canvases in the hours after- ...in the hours after. Joe's heart hasn't stopped pounding, his hand hasn't relaxed on his gun, his jaw just as tight. His head is starting to hurt, his vision blurred, his body aching, but he doesn't quit, doesn't even pause to think.

He'll go to STAR Labs. It's the last known location of Vibe's organization as a group, and if Vibe called Mardon away that's where he'll be. Joe doesn't care if he has to go through every single other damn mutant to get to Mardon - if that's what it's gonna take, that's just what he'll do. For Wally.

Joe goes on foot. His legs burn with fatigue by the time he's coming up close, but he doesn't feel tired. His gun is still out, still ready. It gets darker the closer he gets, no light pollution here now where residents either died, joined up, or fled. The area is derelict now, an abandoned slum. Even the homeless avoid it as best they can. There aren't even any wild animals anymore when the Lab comes into full view. Anything with a self preservation instinct, it seems, knows better than to set foot on Vibe's territory.

Joe stalks closer.

He's intercepted a little less than a block away, by none other than Danton Black. More than enough of him not to bother counting, to be less than exact. Joe doesn't have time for this. For all he knows, Mardon isn't even here and he'll have to hunt him down somewhere else. Black is wasting Joe's time, just like he wasted Joe's goddamn time with his bullshit alibis.

Joe shoots one Black in the head and it disappears. He shoots another, and another, and another, and they disappear. All the shots he takes, he takes right between the eyes. Black's - each Black's - infuriatingly familiar smug grin falters as he realizes that Joe is unflinchingly taking kill shot after kill shot with no conceivable way to tell which Black is the real one, and then in his hesitation he - each one of him - flickers like noise in a sci-fi hologram. All of him except one.

Joe turns, shoots-

The gun drops from Joe's hands as he realizes what he's done (what he's been doing). Black falls to the ground with a pained whimper, curling protectively over his own middle where Joe shot him in the gut, all but unprovoked. The hand he has pressed to his wound, on the ground on his knees, is already shiny and red, his shirt sticky and stained. He looks up at Joe in shock and pain, his eyes glassy, unfocused, and then falls backwards.

Joe rushes forward, crashing onto his own knees to catch Black before he fully hits the ground. He fumbles for his phone with one hand, pressing the other shakily to the wound to stem the bleeding as much as he can. He dials blindly and doesn't let the woman dispatching finish asking him what his emergency is before he speaks.

"I need an ambulance at Jefferson and Third," he gasps out in a breathless, panicky rush. Black is blinking slower now, limp and silent and bleeding across Joe's lap. "Adult male with a gunshot wound."

"I'm sorry, sir," says the dispatcher. What? "We can't send responders to that location."

"What do you mean you can't send responders?" Joe snaps. "That's your job-"

"Sir, STAR Labs and surrounding areas are considered an active disaster zone," she explains, her voice sympathetic but unwavering. "If you can get to Fifth, we can have an ambulance waiting for you there."

Joe hangs up on her. He looks down at Black (is he breathing?) and down the street the way he came. Can he get to Fifth? He looks in the opposite direction, the Lab looming. Joe stands, steeling himself and lifting Black awkwardly into his arms. He doesn't know if they can make it to Fifth, but the Lab is right there, so much closer, and he knows he can get there. Caitlin Snow used to be a doctor before she became Killer Frost, and though Vibe is unfailingly ruthless with outsiders he seems to be an attentive leader to his group at least. Surely they have medical resources on site.

Joe stumbles in the front door, two left feet from exhaustion and shaky from his banking adrenaline rush, not to mention the dea- the solid weight of Black half in his arms and half over one shoulder unbalancing him. He wanders as fast as he can carry them both down a hall, occasionally bumping into a wall and doing his best to careen off of it for momentum, searching for someone, anyone-

Finally, Joe comes to a room, what looks like it used to be a normal control center and what is now the atrium of a king - literally. Vibe lounges on a throne, incomplete but still unmistakable, a skinny older white man in a v-neck feeding him from his hand like some sort of doting servant-in-waiting. There are others all around, and they all stop what they're doing to watch Joe come in, but he barely notices them.

Vibe doesn't sit up, but he tilts his head at Joe like a hungry panther.

"What have we here," he murmurs as his handman fades into the background, sounding just the same as he looks. Joe can't help shuddering, but he swallows back his fear. He has to get Black help.

"I-" he starts, stutters to a stop at the way Vibe's dark eyes shine. Starts again with determination. "I didn't come here on good faith, I admit. But your man here," he lifts Black as much as his weakening arms will let him. "He needs emergency medical attention and they won't send an ambulance out here…" Joe trails off, waiting. Surely that's enough and Vibe will jump into action, he'll have someone take Black's unmoving form from Joe and bring him to Killer Frost to treat, and then Joe will be dealt with however Vibe decides thereafter…

Vibe leans forward, peering at Black in Joe's arms. He gives Joe a look- a look that is the shallowest facsimile of pity.

"He dead," he says baldly.

Joe feels very cold, but he knows there's no point in double checking.

Vibe sighs as Joe blinks back helpless consuming guilt, as if the death of one of his men is a particularly vexing inconvenience.

"Plastique, darling," he says with a careless gesture. The woman in question comes forward and stands at attention. She would look militant and professional, if not for the anticipatory smirk twisting her lips. "Why don't you head over to the station and, ah… _return the favor_ , hm? Be sure to show our noble boys in blue some due generosity."

Joe gapes at him, blinking in disbelief. He's numb now, in every cell. This can't be happening like this. Surely, not even these mutants can do this…

"Aw, look at him, Cisco," says Killer Frost, her voice a lilting, dangerous whine. She leans over Vibe's throne into his space and he lifts the side of his mouth for her in what is almost a smile. "He looks lonely." Vibe hums in feigned consideration.

"You're right," he says in a tone just as fake as his expressions, tapping his chin like he's thinking. "Oh, I know! We should let you go see your friends!" Vibe's grin is wide and full of teeth as he lifts a hand in Joe's direction.

For a moment everything is tinted blue, bent and broken and tossed around like a sickening life-size kaleidoscope, and then Joe is standing in front of the precinct. Well, he's in front of what's _left_ of the precinct anyway. He stands, still numb, weak and slouched and helpless and shivering in his blood soaked street clothes underneath the body he's still carrying, on the concrete stairs outside of a smoldering ruin. Joe has no idea how many people - fellow officers, secretaries, criminals, lawyers, military personnel, civilians - were inside when Plastique hit. Maybe none, maybe dozens. He doubts Plastique, or Vibe, had cared either way.

Slowly, Joe starts warming back up. How could they do this? _This_ is "returning the favor"? Joe took out one - _one!_ \- of theirs, not on accident maybe but not on purpose either, and did his damndest to save him afterwards. And this is how they repaid that? This is what those monsters consider an equal reaction?

And after _how many_ \- how many tens of officers, how many dozens of civilians - that they had outright murdered before this.

They really were evil. All of them. They must be, to do this.

But fine. Fine. Joe can be a monster too.

He lowers Black onto the ground at his feet and forces himself to look at him, at the man he killed out of impatience, anger, and grief. The _mutant_ whose death he still feels guilty for even now, though as he looks back from the body to the crumbling institution of his life that guilt grows more and more distant.

The next one will be easier.

…

The few surviving members of the CCPD have joined the military envoy in the hotel the FEDs booked out for them, now using the lobby as a command center. General Eiling is unequivocally in charge now, owing very simply to the fact that ninety percent of available personnel are under his command. David's people are nearly all dead or gone, or both.

It's been a little over a month since Plastique destroyed the precinct. All the families have been informed, condolences given, funerals attended. It still feels like yesterday.

Detective Joe West isn't here, lost just as much, if not more, as those officers lost to injury. Physical injury. Instead of his own desk, he now has his own case file. His kill count just made it into the double digits last night.

"Obviously this will need to be brought to the public," Eiling says, brandishing the growing file at David. He sounds far too enthusiastic about it for David's liking. But then again, nothing around here anymore is much to David's liking. "He's a damn vigilante, as if the mutant weirdos weren't enough already. Who knows when he'll go the rest of the way off the rails and start taking collateral."

"Let me tell his family personally, first," David says. His voice is dull. His voice is always dull, now. Constantly resigned. "They deserve to hear it from someone they know, at least. Please." Eiling waves at him dismissively. He doesn't care what David does.

"Don't get me wrong," he mutters, flipping through Joe's criminal file with a detached curiosity. David feels a spike of hatred for him, before that too is pulled under the tide of exhausted, unwilling apathy. "We'll take him in with whatever force necessary, like any other criminal." Joe West, David thinks dully, like any other criminal. It doesn't seem right. Nothing is right anymore. "But he might have the right idea about these mutants. _Your_ people tried the kid gloves with them and look how that turned out."

David's lip curls in disgust at him, but the emotion behind it is as distant and unreachable as ever.

"You got that, soldier?" Eiling demands of the whatever-rank at his side. "Deadly force."

"Yes, Sir!" barks the soldier, and turns away to relay the order.

…

David doesn't overstay his welcome at the West house.

"I'm deeply sorry for your loss, ladies," he says at the door as he leaves them. "All of your losses."

Francine sits with her daughter on their couch. The sun sets and the silent room grows dark. Neither of them moves.

Eventually Iris says quietly, "I got the anchor job." Francine watches her baby girl slowly dissolve into helpless tears, the last remaining member of her beautiful family.

"That's great, baby," she whispers. She pets Iris's hair back, kisses her forehead, and cries with her.

 

* * *

 

**_Next time on The Flash:_ **

_Episode 3.06 "Hype Man"_

_A skinny, middle-aged white man in a dark v-neck and tight jeans lounges sideways on Vibe's throne in STAR Labs._

_Iris is tied to a chair, being threatened by Vibe, when a blur of red and yellow flashes around the room and she is gone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the "midseason finale" and a double length chapter, so I'm skipping next week! See you on the 13th!


	6. 3.06 "Hype Man"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris learns a lot, and Thawne makes his entrance.

**_Previously on The Flash:_ **

_"We don't have the luxury of morality anymore," Francine decides, not without sympathy for Barry and Iris._

_Months ago Plastique destroyed the precinct, and ex-Detective Joe West's kill count of metahuman criminals as the vigilante known as Scorn has made it into the double digits._

_Vibe cuts Barry a sharp smirk and quips, "Miss West is really sorry to disappear on you." And then he steps backward into his vibe with her, and they do just that._

 

* * *

 

Iris squirms stubbornly in her bonds, refusing to show Vibe any fear. He has her tied up, surprisingly not too tight, to a plain wooden chair in what looks like it used to be some sort of control room in the old STAR Labs. It's surreal to be held captive in such a brightly lit, sterile room when kidnapping victims on TV always end up in dank warehouses or grimy residences. This room is bright white and silver all around, with a nice table topped with functioning monitors. The one thing that seems fittingly megalomaniacal is the honest to goodness throne in place of pride.

Vibe has a throne. For god's sake.

At the moment, Vibe is not sitting in his throne, instead stalking around Iris in circles and delivering what he himself had called a villain monologue, which Iris is trying not to pay attention to. Someone else has taken the officious high-backed seat in Vibe's stead. He's an older white guy wearing a hipstery looking outfit (complete with v-neck and cord necklace), twirling a drumstick between the fingers of one hand and holding a cup from Jitters in the other. He looks like he's enjoying himself much more than the situation seems to merit. Maybe it's a big deal to sit in the throne and this guy expects Iris to care about that enough to be impressed that he earned the privilege (she doesn't and she's not).

"And when he shows up for you - _poof_. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Not that he's very nice anymore, huh?" Vibe finishes explaining, complete with hand gestures for the poof. "I really thought when I had all his police buddies put down he would have learned his lesson, but I guess I should have known him better than that."

Iris curls her lip at him and sneers, "Why would _you_ know anything about my dad?" Vibe blinks at her in what looks like surprise for a moment, and then he snaps his fingers like he's had an epiphany.

"Oh right!" he says, gratingly cheerful. "I never actually gave anyone the rundown, did I? Well, Ms. West, today is your lucky day. You're getting a _bona fide_ Vibe exclusive." Iris only makes sure not to uncurl her lip. She knows she probably shouldn't antagonize him, especially because she doubts that Scorn really will come to rescue her like Vibe is counting on. But.

"I'm about this close," Vibe continues, unperturbed, holding up fingers pinched close together, "to being… well, omnipotent, really." He grins, flips his hair back, and shrugs faux-casually. "No big deal, I'm just practically a god."

"Bullshit," Iris snarls, baring her teeth - she's dedicated her life to the truth after all, even if sometimes the truth antagonizes villains. "You're just a man. A man with a mutation, but still just a man."

"Listen, _chica_ ," Vibe snaps, and gets right up in Iris's face. Where his eyes were sparkling with mischief, only malevolent because of his precedent deeds, now they are hard and dark. "I'm not _just_ anything. You see my little pet there?" He straightens in order to point at the man still sprawled across the seat and arms of his throne.

"Your _pet-_?" Iris repeats, aghast. The man doesn't look like he's insulted or upset by being referred to that way, but still…

"Yep," Vibe says, popping the _p_. "House trained and everything, not to brag. I call him H.R. but don't you think he looks a lot like Harrison Wells, hm?" When Iris looks closer she sees, yes, H.R. looks almost exactly like the late lead scientist of the particle accelerator project and the co-founder of STAR Labs. In fact, the closer Iris looks, the more it seems like the only difference between them at all is H.R.'s style of dress and his haircut.

Vibe must have been watching her look, and she must show some reaction on her face, because as soon as Iris realizes that H.R. and Harrison Wells are identical, Vibe says smugly, "Doctor Wells didn't have a twin, you know. Only child, no kids, blah blah. And, as I'm sure you're aware, he's dead." He squats down next to Iris's chair so that he can continue right into her ear.

"H.R. here is an entirely different Harrison Wells, but a Harrison Wells he is. And now my little revenant warms my seat and brings me my coffee."

"So, what?" Iris mutters after a few deep breaths so that her voice comes out as steady as ever even though she's freaking out a little at how true Vibe's words seem to be. "He's some sort of super cabana boy? Wow, I'm so impressed." Vibe only laughs as he stands again.

"Of course not," he says, still chuckling. "He doesn't have any powers. I brought him here. I replaced a dead man, Ms. West, just because I felt like it. Now does that sound like something 'just a man' can do?"

 _No_ , Iris thinks, but she keeps it to herself. _No, it doesn't_.

"Bup bup," Vibe tutts at H.R., shooing him out of the throne. H.R. removes himself from it without hesitation or complaint, continuing to smirk, even as Vibe takes his place and he settles instead at his master's feet like- well, like exactly the pet Vibe had labeled him. He takes a long sip from his Jitters cup with a blissful expression that Iris finds more than a little exaggerated. It's creepy not to know what's in being here for him - Vibe may have brought him here but he certainly doesn't seem to be a captive like Iris is.

"Ugh, the waiting part of a kidnapping plot is the worst," Vibe says, curling one leg up onto the seat of his throne and letting his head fall against its high back with a thunk. "I mean, this is my first kidnapping plot, but definitely this is the worst part."

"Poor you," Iris mutters. Vibe looks up, but only grins at her this time, like now that she's not doubting his power he finds her sass charming. It only serves to make him even more frightening - unpredictable, just like everyone has always warned. When he sits up straight suddenly, Iris can't help but flinch.

"My spidey-sense is tingling," he declares, narrowing his dark eyes at the only door. Iris doesn't know what the hell that's supposed to mean, but she sits up straighter too as much as her bindings will allow her. She knows if someone really is coming, and coming for her, it isn't her mom - that wouldn't be tactically advantageous. But maybe she would have sent Barry, or he might have come on his own accord. Mom had said he was a good mutant like Magenta, though she hadn't said what his abilities were. That's the most likely, really. If the person coming is really here for Iris. But she can't help but hope, just a little bit, in the back of her mind, that maybe Vibe was right and her dad would still come…

A breeze starts up in the room an Iris's hair stands up - literally now, from static, instead of metaphorically in fear like before - the whispery crackling sound of distant electrical discharge echoing into the relatively bare room. Iris tries to look at the door too, but it's directly behind her so she can only catch a glimpse out of her peripherals and there isn't anything there - yet. Vibe leaps to his feet, clearing H.R. (who hasn't moved, but doesn't look quite as smug anymore at least) easily.

The breeze picks up, steadily becoming a true whirlwind, blowing Iris's hair around into her face and making it shock her from all the static it's collected from the buzzing air. And then suddenly there's color too - a smeared swath of yellow with little red streaks in the stream of the circular wind. Vibe's hair is blowing too, and he's holding out one of his deadly hands, frustratedly adjusting his aim over and over again. The deep frown of concentration he's wearing quickly changes to a terrifying teeth-bared scowl. Iris hopes he doesn't get too frustrated and switch his target to the one that isn't moving.

Before that thought can grow into a real fear though, Iris feels leather-clad arms around her, the ropes having fallen away so quickly she hadn't noticed, the colors of the room around her bend sharply together, the wind picks up far enough to sting her cheeks, and then- Iris is in the park. She stumbles and nearly falls, catching herself on a conveniently near bench, as the world goes suddenly still and steady again. Iris's hair and clothes are pulled forward as the streak - the person - who saved her rushes in the other direction. Acting on instinct, Iris pulls her phone as fast as she can and snaps a picture. Before Iris even knows if she caught anything in her shot, the yellow streak is gone and Iris is by herself. She takes a step - where towards she doesn't know - and stumbles, unprepared for how the world has suddenly gone back to being still and steady. She grabs onto a conveniently closeby park bench, keeping a too tight grip on her phone so she doesn't drop it and lose whatever proof she managed to get. A bird chirps.

Iris collapses onto the bench and lets herself panic for a moment. Acknowledges the roiling nausea in her stomach, the unpleasant floaty feeling in her brain, the shaking in her fingers. She lets the tears she's been holding back fall, and even allows a gasp and a quiet whine to come out of her mouth.

And then she wipes her makeup neat again, stands, and makes way for home.

For Headquarters.

…

When Iris makes it back to Headquarters, slow on her shaky feet, the rest of the task force is already assembled, all standing and arguing over whether or not to go looking for her considering who took her.

"...good sign he didn't just make her disappear," Chief Singh is saying over his firmly crossed arms, his voice sounding tight and brittle even as he tries to keep a reasonable tone.

"He must want something," Cecile acknowledges, also attempting to manage a steady tone, rotating her Jitters cup around and around in her hands.

"I can go get her!" Barry is insisting frantically over everyone else. "I can just be in and out. It's my fault she got taken anyway. If I hadn't taken her out- I don't even need anyone else to look I can just go-"

Francine is silent, pacing furiously like a caged tiger in front of the mantle.

Iris steps forward on the threshold and clears her throat. Every face turns immediately to look at her, and then they all rush forward at once, crowding her to make sure she's real, to check her over for injury, or maybe just that they all need to be closer to hear what she might have to say over the shouts of each other. Iris is bombarded by every iteration of "What happened" she could have thought of at least twice before she manages to squeeze herself fully into the room.

It's only then she notices that Francine hadn't converged on her with the others. She stands still by the mantle, her arms folded, frowning inscrutably.

"Mom?" Iris asks hesitantly. She's not sure what she's asking for or what she expects, but she never has been able to handle the distance that has been growing between them after Joe… left them.

Iris would hardly have noticed if she wasn't actively looking for something - anything, any reaction from her mother at all - but Francine's lip wobbles almost imperceptibly before she opens her arms for a hug, and Iris stumbles forward at full tilt and falls into her mother's arms like she used to as a little girl.

The world is shut out as Francine's arms close tightly around Iris's shaking shoulders, and for a moment it's as if nothing at all has happened, like it was all just a nightmare Iris dreamed up and she's still in high school and her biggest worry is her gradually falling science grade. Eventually, Iris has to pull away and come back to the real world, though.

"I was rescued by someone," Iris tells the group as she reluctantly removes herself from her mother's comforting embrace. "It wasn't any of you?" One by one they all shake their heads no, and Iris nods as that suspicion of hers is confirmed. She turns to face Francine head-on, now as the leader of this task force instead of as her mom. She squares her shoulders and her jaw, standing tall and sure for what she has to say next.

"I think it was Scorn. I think it was Dad."

…

Predictably, Francine doesn't agree with Iris. Barry sits alone on the couch, wringing his hands in between his knees. As much as he wants Iris's idea about Joe to be true, he doesn't really think it is in this case. In fact, the more Iris describes her experience the more certain Barry gets that her rescuer is not Joe.

It's very, very obvious that Iris was rescued by a speedster in a yellow suit. _The_ speedster in yellow. Thawne.

The only question is why.

"Here, look," Iris is saying now, pulling out her phone and handing it to Chief Singh who is the closest person to her at the moment. "I think I got a picture of him." Chief Singh looks down at the phone as Iris presses it insistently into his hands.

"Well," he says doubtfully. "It definitely looks like a man. But that doesn't mean it's Joe."

"Who else would it be?" Iris demands angrily. She grabs her phone out of Singh's hands and thrusts it at Cecile instead.

"If it is Scorn," Cecile says thoughtfully as she peers at Iris's picture on the little screen, "how would he have gotten a mutation? He didn't have one before did he?"

"No," Francine speaks for the first time since first disagreeing with Iris. She is leaning back on the mantle with her arms crossed, just watching the contained chaos that is Iris's frustration and hope. "No, he wasn't. He's a normal human - he lost his humanity the old fashioned way." Iris makes an outraged noise that Francine ignores. "It's not him."

Iris's phone finally reaches Barry, with the picture up for him to see. For him to see the very thing he's seen so many times already in his nightmares. Eobard Thawne, the Reverse Flash. The picture Iris snapped shows him from behind, blurred with speed as he shoots forward and away. The shape of a running man - and, more importantly, the colors of his suit - is all that is really distinguishable.

But.

Barry knows perfectly well from experience, of his own abilities and from having gone up directly against Thawne in battles and races, that there's absolutely no reason that Thawne couldn't have done whatever he was doing fast enough not only to avoid having his picture taken, but also to avoid being seen by Iris at all.

No other reason but by his own choice, that is.

"Fine," comes Iris's voice, muffled and distant in Barry's ears as he stares down at the bad cell phone picture she took of Barry's worst enemy after he had just rescued her from who used to be Barry's best friend. All he can think is why. Why, why, why. Why would Thawne rescue Iris, because it's definitely not out of altruism. Even in the most skewed alternate universe conceivable, Thawne would be no hero. Besides which, this Thawne was brought here with Barry, from the old timeline, so he's just as evil here as he was there. "Fine, so maybe it's not Dad. But he could have sent that guy. Maybe he's getting better. We should-"

"He's not your father," Francine interrupts coolly. Barry can understand a little, where she's coming from. After all, he keeps having to remind himself that Scorn isn't the Joe he knew either. But for Iris, it seems that's the last straw.

"Shut _up_!" she shouts, and her voice breaks and her eyes are tearing up, and Barry's heart breaks for her. "Yes, he _is_! And we should do everything we possibly can to bring him back!" She stomps a foot and clenches her hands into angry fists, but the expression on her face doesn't tell of strength or anger like that. Her eyes spill over and she cries, messy and quiet, still standing tall in front of all of them. "I want him _back_."

Slowly, guiltily, Barry creeps his way over to Francine by the mantle, still gripping Iris's phone in one hand. When he reaches the stone faced leader of the taskforce, Barry nudges her with his elbow. She glares at him out of the corner of her eye, and he tries not to shuffle his feet around like a little kid who's about to get into trouble. He gestures toward the doorway into the kitchen with his head for her to follow him in for some privacy, while in the background both Singh and Cecile are attempting to comfort Iris. Barry wishes he could go to her too, that he could just drop everything else and just be with Iris, but he can't. He has to do this first.

"This is the bad guy that… followed me," Barry tells Francine when they reach the privacy of the kitchen, stumbling a little around the half truth. It tastes bad in Barry's mouth, but… it's necessary. And it's just for now. Once he manages to catch Eobard and figure out what he did, and undo it, the real truth won't matter anymore - it won't be real anymore.

"Our powers," Barry says quietly when Francine gestures impatiently for him to go on. "We both have super speed, access to what's called the Speedforce which is sort of like gravity or time. I'm not really from an alternate universe - I mean, I am, but I'm not… I'm from an alternate future."

"And so is he," Francine infers. "The same one?" Barry nods.

"I think he's changing stuff," he explains. "When we mess around with time it can cause bigger changes to the future than just what we did, right? So I think he's running around and changing things in order to mess up the timeline, because I stopped him from doing what he came back to the past to do in the first place."

"He sounds like a piece of work," Francine says with a wry twist to her mouth. Barry nods again - 'work' is not quite the word Barry would have used there, but close enough. "If he's so evil why would he save Iris from Vibe, though?"

"That's the thing," Barry says, forgetting to keep his voice down. "Vibe isn't supposed to be a bad guy! He's a hero! Thawne - this guy," he waves Iris's phone, the picture of Thawne still up, "did something to make that happen. And he hates not getting credit for his dirty work. He and I are both fast enough to avoid being seen. There's no way Iris could have gotten a picture of him if he didn't want her to. He has to make sure I know what he's doing."

"Is it really that personal?" Francine wonders skeptically. Her arms are folded again and she regards Barry coolly, looking him up and down. Barry feels like she's coming to conclusions, but he can't tell what they are - if they're good or if they're bad.

"Honestly, I know it sounds crazy," Barry admits, "but yes, it really is. But… I think this is actually good news. If we can catch him, maybe I can get him to undo everything he's done. The whole timeline could be fixed. No more bad guy Vibe, no more Scorn, you can have Joe and Wally back…" Maybe they'll get Eddie back too, but even if Iris gets back together with him then Barry will be thrilled. The Eddie he knew as a good man, and an amazing boyfriend. He was happy for them then, and he can be just as happy for them now. "It can be like none of any of this ever even happened."

Francine's fingers tap on her elbow for long moments, her calculating look still firmly in place. But finally, she gives Barry one curt nod.

"I'll help you catch your bad guy, and I'll help you interrogate him when we get him too," she says. Barry's shoulders drop in relief. He'd been so nervous that she might write him off, or that she might blame him for Thawne's presence. But she holds up one finger before he can get too comfortable. "On one condition. This will be a distraction to the rest of the 'force. They have to stay focused on the real mission here - our mission." She peers subtly into the living room where Cecile has taken Iris to the couch and it looks like Singh has given her his coffee. "And… Nobody here needs to be given any false hope. If you're wrong-"

"I'm not," Barry insists.

"If you're wrong," Francine continues like he didn't say anything. "It would kill my baby girl to think she could have our boys back, and then not get that happily ever after. I won't do that to her. And neither will you."

Barry chews on his lip. He hates the idea of lying to Iris - or, lying to her even more, that is. It was practically like torture back when he had to keep her in the dark about the Flash the first time. On the other hand, Barry thinks as he sneaks a peek at Iris too. It really would break her heart. She's already lost Joe and Wally once in this timeline - Barry doesn't know how she could handle it a second time. He certainly didn't do well with losing his dad twice, and the first time he wasn't even dead.

"Alright," Barry agrees on a sigh. He resolves not to feel too guilty about the lying. After all, if they do this right, nobody else will ever have to know.

 

* * *

 

**_Next Week on The Flash:_ **

_Episode 3.07 "Charmer"_

_Vibe lounges in his throne, scowling, and demands that his meta group find the speedster. Dead or alive._

_A red plasma wormhole opens, and a determined looking brown skinned woman steps through._

_Deathbolt and Plastique square off - the resulting explosion whites out the scene._


	7. 3.07 "Charmer"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has different choices to make and different battles to fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: more minor character death, semi-graphic depiction of dissociation.

**_Previously on The Flash:_ **

_Magenta spies on Killer Frost and her forces, including the mutinous Mirror Master, and reports back to Francine and the task force - thanklessly._

_Iris lists the metas on Vibe's side of the turf war: Black Siren, Plastique, Pied Piper, Turtle, Top, Bug-Eyed Bandit, and the surviving Weather Wizard._

_"I call him H.R.," Vibe tells a captive Iris smugly. "I replaced a dead man, and now he warms my seat and brings me coffee. I'm practically a god."_

 

* * *

 

Vibe is lounging on his throne in the cortex room of STAR Labs, but the relaxed position is feigned, and it's easy to tell by the deep scowl on his face - not to mention the way he's actually squeezing his stress ball for once, instead of vibing it around the room like he usually does when he's thinking something through.

The difference here, really, is that Vibe has already thought this something all the way through (within reason; there should always be room for a little improv). Now there's nothing to do but wait, and as he said to Iris West waiting is always the worst part of any evil plot. Not that this plot is really that much of a plot, if Vibe is honest with himself.

His group of metas (growing ever more meager, but at least Killer Frost is in the same boat there, tit for tat and all) is huddled together around the table that used to be covered with a bank of computers and now only has one at the far end. Scattered all over the surface, the focus of all of their attentions, are blueprints of the police precinct.

That is, Scorn's base of operations.

Vibe doesn't know (and himself forbid, but he absolutely abhors not knowing something these days - it's very irritating to be only _almost_ omnipotent) if Scorn is really the source of the speedster that came to get his daughter but for one Vibe knows that Scorn - or Joe West, rather - has been allied with speedsters on other Earths, and for two Vibe doesn't really care at this point if Scorn did this one little thing to irke him. Iris West was meant to be a lure for Central City's resident antihero so that Vibe could kill him for everything he had _already_ done. Or banish him to another Earth, or another planet, or another planet in the universe of another Earth - all options which are ultimately much more fun for Vibe because he gets to check in every now and then to watch. But either way. The purpose was to take care of Scorn. To get rid of him. Make him stop fucking killing Vibe's metas.

It's very rude. Vibe is obviously using those.

The speedster themselves is another issue all together. They obviously won't be keeping their lot in with Scorn for long (if they even are his man), given that Scorn got his fancy new name courtesy of his personal feelings on metas (and it really could be better; they should have asked Vibe to come up with one). And of course Vibe wants to recruit them, but if that fails the only choice is off with their head, whoever (whichever one) they are. There's no room to have his usual fun with a fellow metahuman, especially a speedster, who could always manage to come back on their own powers. And Vibe can't risk Killer Frost picking them up instead.

If Vibe can't have them, no one can.

So Vibe ruminates in his throne (a beautiful piece of work, if he does say so himself) with H.R. happily leaning up against his shins and sipping at his beloved coffee (Vibe knows on his Earth there is none left, and pities him), both of them looking suitably pretty, and all of Vibe's loyal and lovely followers pour over blueprints and strategy.

Scorn first, because if Vibe really wants to live up to this whole mob thing - and he most certainly does - then message sending has to be a priority. And then, when Joe West is dead, Vibe will turn his attention to the new meta.

But of course, even the great and powerful Vibe has to answer to Murphy.

A writhing plasma vibe portal opens in the doorway (oh, how polite), red instead of blue like his always are. Vibe's metas all go quiet and look up ready - and Vibe loves them, honestly, bless their hearts, et cetera - but they are just too slow. Vibe is already on his feet despite H.R.'s weight still against one shapely tri-polymer covered leg, his talented hands locked and loaded.

Or maybe the other metas just can't apprehend the intruder because the lady in question is a lady who apparently knows exactly what she wants. She makes a beeline for the throne like there's nothing and no one else in the room but her and Vibe.

Kinkshame him or what have you, but Vibe likes the attention.

That is, until he realizes pretty alternate universe lady is not looking at him. She's looking at his feet - at H.R. _Rude_.

"Whoa, hey, hold up," he snaps out, holding his hands out to placate now, both towards the oncoming viber and towards his own forces for a hold fire. He's irritated to have been looked over for some powerless fashion challenged caffeine addict, and he has to know why. "What do you want?"

"My name is Agent Reynolds," viber lady says, standing tall and proud, professional and badass but not militant like Plastique - different but equal, Vibe decides, despite his deliberate efforts towards nepotism. "I'm a bounty hunter from my Earth where that man is a criminal fugitive." She points in a suitably dramatic fashion to accuse H.R. It's pretty well done. If there was anyone here who wasn't also a criminal they might just have gasped in shock and betrayal. "He has committed many crimes which set me on his trail originally, and then escalated to one of the greatest crimes of our Earth - travel to other universes, punishable by death - to escape me. My mission is to apprehend him and bring him back to our Earth to stand trial and face justice."

"Wow, what a plot twist that is," Vibe says flatly, and Agent Reynolds (with her superior talents, she clearly deserves a better name than that, hmm...) gives him a confused and irritated look. Probably disappointed that her big reveal didn't get the proper reception. Vibe supposes he can relate to that. If she's got another one up her sleeve he'll act more surprised for it. "Sadly, you can't have him."

"Excuse me?" Agent Reynolds demands. She takes a step forward, her fists clenched (also covered in a nice tri-polymer blend Vibe sees, better and better), eyes positively aflame with temper. Vibe sees every member of his back up tense. Of course, he doesn't need them to actually back him up or protect him, but boy does he love that they will if he asks.

"H.R. happens to be my property," Vibe explains to Agent Reynolds, shrugging in feigned apology. "Finders keepers and all that. And you know, once you name something it's much harder to let it go. I simply couldn't bare to part with him now."

"He's a criminal!" Agent Reynolds repeats insistently. "Justice-"

"Ugh," Vibe interrupts, and turns away to slump back into his throne. He's proud to see that H.R. hasn't made a move except to make sure he's out of Vibe's way - so well behaved! "You suddenly got really boring, with that. Hey, Super Friends," he adds to his metas still waiting on their toes for his orders. "Be good hosts for me and show Lady Justice here where the door is. I'm pretty sure she missed it on her way in." (Not that Vibe can talk, where that's concerned. Why use a door when you don't have to?)

Vibe takes the Jitter's coffee cup from H.R. as his metas converge on Agent Reynolds, and takes a long sip to the equally delicious soundtrack of battle. Explosions, sonic screams, the crackle of lightning, and of course the evergreen classic thuds of hand to hand - a full orchestra. Beautiful.

(Wait. Almost the full orchestra. Vibe doesn't hear any radio waves. He'll have to talk to Piper about teamwork. But for this one he'll get a pass - they hardly need him, or most everyone else either, to win against one. Low priority; the idea that Piper's loyalty to Vibe could falter is laughable, considering their _history_.)

In the end, Agent Reynolds vibes away, the quick glow of her red plasma circle blinking out as soon as she's through - precise and exact, no chance for anyone else to follow her through. Vibe hums to himself around another mouthful of his pet's coffee. It seems he hasn't perfected his own powers as much as he'd thought. He doesn't mind that she escaped though - he did say show her the door, not send her to her maker after all. Besides, even though that whole 'justice' spiel that was coming was undoubtedly dull, Vibe kind of liked her.

"Well, she certainly was charming, wasn't she?" he says into the sudden quiet.

Maybe they'll meet again, without silly ephemeral things like _laws_ to get in their way. In fact, Vibe decides on a whim, he thinks he'd like to meet her again soon. Very, very soon.

"Did we grab anything off her?" he asks the room, and to his great pleasure Black Siren steps up to his throne to lay an empty ripped-off holster on the arm by his elbow. "Excellent. You're my favorite today." Black Siren preens, and then shoots a challenging look over her shoulder at the others. Good. Nothing like a little internal competition to keep everyone reaching for their highest potentials.

Vibe slips one glove off and takes the holster in his bare hand, closing his eyes temporarily to shut everything else out. He can feel when he catches the vibe and opens his eyes back up to see where he's ended up, metaphysically.

There she is, injured somewhere in the abdominal range, but it doesn't look too serious. She's still got plenty of color in her cheeks, and the look on her face is simply pissed off. Vibe allows himself a quick grin before turning his attention to the surroundings, looking for any conveniently nearby street signs. Aha, there! Memorial and Tenth.

Killer Frost's territory.

"Damn," Vibe snarls as he comes back down into his physical body. "Looks like our Charmer is one of the enemy." He tosses the holster aside with greater rage than is probably appropriate. "No fair. I liked her."

"You think her story was bull, Boss?" Weather Wizard asks, his pale blue eyes glinting - fittingly - like deadly sharp icicles in harsh winter sun. He clenches and loosens his fists in his readiness to hunt her down, the change in air pressure around him sending out static electricity and making his hair start to stand up - such an eager little enforcer, like a well trained guard dog, how cute, and pretty too. If there wasn't such a power discrepancy between them, Vibe might go for him. But alas, pretty and ruthless as he is, Weather Wizard might as well be a normie compared to Vibe.

"No," Vibe admits with a sigh, and then has his ire curbed by fondness in the way Weather Wizard pouts to be put off a chase. "More than likely it just happens to be a convenient truth."

"I thought you didn't believe in coincidences?" Piper asks from where he doesn't seem to have moved all night, leaning on the end of the table where that one old computer is left. The poor guy is sentimental, even still.

"I don't," Vibe acknowledges him with a wink, not too perturbed when Piper doesn't blush and duck his head like he used to - he thinks Piper and Trickster might have a little thing starting up, which is _adorable_ , and besides Vibe and Piper were sort of friends back when they were just Cisco and Hartley so Vibe is happy for him to finally be able to move on. They could have been something, before they both evolved into _homo superior_ , but things are so much better now a tiny sacrifice like that is nothing. Vibe is proud, sure, but hubris is no blinder to him - he knows even gods can't have everything. Only _most_ things. "Charmer's story might have been true, but it was an excuse to be here if she's working for Killer Frost."

"Pretty shit attempt at spying," Plastique says, crossing her arms in judgement. Vibe adores how salty she is all the time (except with Siren, _aw_ ).

"Too shit to have been an attempt at spying," agrees Vibe. "It was a declaration, with an exit strategy. Killer Frost has always been wishy-washy like that." He rolls his eyes and puts on a whiny voice. "'I don't want to follow any rules. But wait, I don't want to be _evil_.' Sympathetic enough for an audience of invariable good guys, but we aren't. Let's help her get over that last little weakness, shall we?"

There are murmurs of agreement in various levels of enthusiasm and Vibe grins. He loves being in charge. He should be in charge on every Earth and every timeline. Everyone's lives would be better, really. Mostly his, but everyone else's too, definitely. He clicks his fingers at Bug-Eyed Bandit and she snaps into attention.

"Plot a course, Ensign," Vibe tells her. She grins at the reference (one of the few he makes now that his babies have the ability to get; it's lonely at the top) and rushes over to the lone computer, displacing Piper. The thing boots up even though it's not connected to anything anymore and hums happily at Bandit's telepathic touch, basking in her virtual love (any tech would be lucky to have her). She'll make sure there's no technical warning or roadblocks for them. No police or military flies sticking in their honey as they make their way to Killer Frost's doors.

"Rest up, babies," Vibe says to everyone else. "Tomorrow, we ride."

…

Magenta feels like a coward, but she's hiding behind an overturned gurney, gulping in harsh breaths and swallowing back tears.

Behind her there's a battle raging. An honest to goodness battle, like from a war, with explosions and speeding projectiles and people maybe dying, and she was never supposed to be involved in anything like this. She's only seventeen! She's not ready for anything like this even in the eyes of the law.

Not that the eyes of the law are watching over anybody in this place.

Someone goes flying over her head and she covers her mouth so that she doesn't scream. She can't even look long enough to check who's side they're on. Boss West is gonna be so pissed - that is, if Killer Frost doesn't make her anger at Magenta's lack of usefulness first. Maybe Magenta can plead the age card and Killer Frost will have a little mercy on her. She's definitely not known for anything that but there's a first time for everything, right?

Magenta gathers up as much courage as she possibly can manage, and peers around the edge of the gurney. Maybe she can spot an opening to run… She tries to avoid looking at anyone, keeping her gaze to empty space as much as she can, but she can't shield herself from it all. A red flash of light catches her eye against her will and she sees someone from the back glow red until they burst and they aren't there anymore. Holy hell.

As she's hurriedly looking away again, considering giving up on finding anything just so that she can turn away and close her eyes and not see anything more, Magenta happens to pass over the Pied Piper - as far as she's been led to believe, one of Vibe's closest and favorite agents - send out one of his concussive radio waves from the fringe of the battle to push Black Siren out of the way of an incoming cloud of gas - Mist - just as she's taking a breath to scream. Well, at least somebody out there is looking out for their teammates instead of just gunning for the other side.

But then Pied Piper throws Rainbow Raider across the room when he would have been hit by a flash of lightning from Weather Wizard. Maybe it's a coincidence, and Piper was just aiming for Raider at the same time Weather Wizard happened to shoot at him too. But Raider gets up from where he was tossed completely uninjured, so Magenta kind of doubts it. Is Pied Piper a double agent like she is? Or is he just trying to avoid casualties. Magenta takes a quick glance at his face. He sure doesn't look happy to be here.

As Magenta watches him, captivated by the mercy she knows she won't find anywhere else (maybe not even on the 'good guy' side at this point), Pied Piper saves Bug-Eyed Bandit, Mirror Master, Turtle, and even Killer Frost herself, all but unnoticed. And then- Girder- behind him, raising his clasped steel fists above his head to bring them down hard onto Piper's skull-

Magenta acts without thinking, leaping up from behind the safety of her cover behind the gurney. She flings out her hands and grasps for the magnetic field around Girder's metal body. When she has a feel of him, Magenta holds on as hard as she can, rallying all of her mental control over her powers to throw him away from Piper as far and as hard as she can. The noise of metal scraping over the painted concrete walls of the large waiting room they're fighting in makes Magenta's stomach twist sharply. She swallows hard again, this time to avoid throwing up. Pied Piper looks behind him at where Girder is sprawled, still metal and unmoving, and then back at Magenta, wide-eyed. There's a moment that draws out between them as they stare at each other, the small distance between them seeming almost uncrossable - but, now, only almost.

The moment is broken by the furious scream of Killer Frost, followed closely by a painful cold snap. Magenta shivers, in cold yes, but mostly in terror.

"Traitor!" Killer Frost shrieks. Magenta is frozen in her gaze as she starts to fog like dry ice, the biggest warning sign of impending danger that Magenta has ever seen in her young life. She screams involuntarily, diving hard and painfully onto the linoleum floor on instinct - just in time to avoid being speared through by a gigantic speeding icicle.

She's going to die. Oh god, oh god, she's going to _die-_

The next icicle shatters into a million tiny pieces, only feet away from hitting its mark - that mark being Magenta's head. She squeezes her eyes shut as tiny shards of ice shower her, and quickly start to melt harmlessly into her hair and clothes. The next time she manages to blink her eyes open again, Piper has crossed the full distance between them. He grabs Magenta too tightly around her upper arm and yanks her half behind him even as he shoots off a radio blast at Killer Frost.

"Go! Straight back! There's an emergency stairwell!" Piper snaps out, pushing Magenta in the right direction.

Well, Magenta thinks hysterically as she army crawls that way, this certainly is an emergency. Shit, she doesn't even know _how_ to army crawl, technically. She's just scrambling along desperately on her elbows, hoping nothing hits her…

Magenta's breath stops as she hears the staticky sound of a vibe. _Shit_.

"Keep aiming at Frost, by all means," comes the voice of none other but _the_ Vibe, the biggest boss, the baddest bad. Shit shit shit-! Magenta stops in her mad crawl toward the emergency exit and glances behind her shoulder, and there he is. He stands imposingly right in front of Pied Piper, looking down at him where he's still kneeling from where he fell to the ground to reach Magenta. Vibe is backlit by a broken and dangling fluorescent light. How fittingly ominous. From what Magenta has heard about him - lucky to never meet him before now - he probably did it on purpose. "But what is this?" Vibe gestures at Magenta over Pied Piper's shoulder.

Magenta starts shaking all over, blinking rapidly as her eyes start to fill with the tears she's been holding back. Sure, maybe she won't die at the hands of Vibe. But maybe it'll be something even worse.

No one knows what Vibe actually _does_ to his victims. Only that they never, ever come back.

"Hey, Boss," Pied Piper whispers, again barely audible over everything that's going on around them. His tone is thick with emotion, sad in the same way Mirror Master was when he had to say goodbye to Top, but so much _more_. He doesn't continue. Instead, he blasts an icicle aimed at Vibe's back. It lands on the ground in pieces that scitter to the side. Vibe barely pays them a glance. There's the rumble of thunder and a crack of lightning from behind him, another furious howl from Killer Frost as she's forced to turn her attention to Weather Wizard.

"I understand," he says to Piper, in a tone that would be reasonable and sympathetic, if he wasn't _Vibe_. "If you don't have it in you to take out a kid. Really, I get it. I don't want you to do anything you can't do. But stand aside so that I can do it for you." The look on his face is gentle, so incongruous with everything that Magenta knows about him.

"Cisco," Pied Piper says, almost pleadingly, his voice shaking now.

Slowly, the gentle look on Vibe's face dies, succumbing to something baser. His eyebrows draw down over his dark eyes and his lip curls as he realizes that Pied Piper is betraying him, just as Magenta betrayed Killer Frost.

"It's Vibe," he corrects. His voice is ragged and rough, a deep but broken growl. His eyes haven't gone hard and cold and flat like Magenta might have expected. They stay soft. She looks away.

"Get out of my sight," Vibe says then, and even though Magenta can practically feel the sadness vibrating off of Pied Piper's shaking shoulders she can't help the gasping relief. "The next time I see you, I'll kill you. With my bare hands. _Hartley_." The name he sneers with such disdain that even Magenta flinches, ducking her head to further block her view so that she doesn't have to see Piper's reaction.

But Piper only turns his back on Vibe as Vibe turns away too - and makes what seems like the very first person he sees disappear in a flash of eery blue. Piper takes Magenta by the hand and pulls her up with him into standing, and together they rush into the emergency stairwell before Vibe can change his mind. They take the stairs down to ground level as many at a time as they can manage without tripping.

In the room - on the battleground - that they left behind, the war between Killer Frost and Vibe and their forces rages on without them. Both sides are taking harder hitting shots now. If not all of them care about their turncoats, then the rage of their leaders spurs them on. As Vibe and Killer Frost square up, all around them their metas face each other with the same loathing. All around, lightning strikes and explosions boom. Girder doesn't get up. He's not the only one.

Plastique is cackling as she lays her deadly bare hands on Rainbow Raider, and in a second there's very nearly nothing left of him. Vibe smirks at Killer Frost, not taking his eyes off of his main foe for a second. From the look on her face, he thinks he must be winning.

"Someone take her out!" Killer Frost demands, even as Vibe keeps her occupied. He doesn't pay attention to who goes to see to her orders.

"Got it, Ma," someone shouts. A man. Whatever, it doesn't matter. Plastique will take care of him.

He should have double checked, just this once.

Plastique turns to face Deathbolt, both of them smirking, equally confident in their win, both eager for the kill. There's a whine as Deathbolt's eyes power up, glowing red. Plastique reaches out and grabs him by the shoulders, and-

They both go off at once.

The concussive force - and the noise, and the heat - puts everyone present on the ground. The whole room flashes bright, painful white, and when that clears it starts to fill with greasy smoke.

Neither Deathbolt nor Plastique have left a body.

There is a long moment of an unpleasantly ringing silence, and then-

Black Siren _screams_.

If they weren't all already floored, they would be now. All curling up, trying to cover their ears, trying to crawl away from her if they can, just writhing on the ground if they can't. She screams for long, long minutes.

Long enough that no one is fit for battle by the time she's done. With a wide flash of blue, Vibe takes his people into instantaneous retreat.

Four landings down, Magenta and Pied Piper grab onto the metal railings along the emergency stairwell as the building shakes from the explosion. And then they, too, collapse when Black Siren's grief reaches them. Magenta screams in pain, clutching her head, but she can't hear herself. Pied Piper screams too, but she can't hear him either. His ears start bleeding and he claws at them in desperation. Eventually, he pulls his implants out and lets them fall, lightly smoking, onto the landing.

When the sonics finally stop, Pied Piper is the first to move. He scoops his fried implants up and into a hidden pocket in the expansive folds of his cloak, and then pulls himself into standing with the railing for support. He pants for a second, and then gestures for Magenta to do the same. She swallows back nausea and obeys.

They can't afford not to keep running.

It's jarring to step out into the sun outside of the ER. Outside it seems like as much of a normal day as Central City can have anymore. Clear skies, fluffy white clouds, the silence of the abandoned streets. The sounds from inside are muffled from more than a few doors in between them and there. If it weren't for the sick feeling of the fading adrenaline rush, it would almost be like none of that had even happened.

Magenta looks over at Pied Piper - at Hartley - intending to thank him, but she stops short when she sees his face. He's standing tall, his shoulders straight and his head held high, so much stronger than Magenta thinks she would be in the same situation. But his eyes are swimming, drowning, and in between one blink and the next his face crumples and his tears behind to fall. It's not a pretty, manful cry. His mouth bends into a twisted grimace, his eyebrows drawing up and making little valleys of grief over the bridge of his nose and up his forehead. His shoulders hunch, and shake with his heaving broken breaths - his sobs. He stumbles for a second, looking like he might fall to his knees, so even though Magenta would rather look away again she reaches out and grabs his arms.

She wants to offer him her real name, to at least put them on more even ground somehow. It's the least she can do. But she doesn't know any sign language or anything, so she just holds onto him. She doesn't let herself look away this time. Soon enough Hartley sniffs and wipes one side of his face, leaving the other shining and wet.

"Do you know of any place safe for us to go?" he asks her. His voice is the barest touch too loud, but clear. Magenta chews on her lip. She knows Boss West hates metas like them, and only took her on because she didn't have much other choice, and now that Magenta can't spy for her anymore she doesn't know what kind of welcome she'll have at the Headquarters, but…

"I know a place that's worth a try," she says, and then catches herself and nods. But Hartley has already nodded back with a sigh. He must have read her lips. He gestures out before them at the silent and empty street.

"Lead the way," he says.

And with a deep breath, Magenta does.

…

There is already a large group assembled at the house Magenta leads Hartley to when they arrive, Hartley trailing after his unexpected new ally in silence and trying to to cry again. For one thing, she had looked so deeply uncomfortable it would almost have been comedic if Hartley were a bystander. For another, more important thing, Hartley just hates crying. It doesn't even make you feel better. It's the worst.

The big, heavy brown door Magenta knocks on swings open in seconds, revealing a worried looking pretty young black woman.

"Oh! Magenta," she gasps, and reaches out to take Magenta's arm and pull her close, for all appearances looking her over for injuries. Hartley is a little thrown. As far as he knows, there aren't any metahumans that haven't been recruited or… sent away. And in his experience, humans tend not to feel too charitable towards metas.

At this point, Hartley thinks dully, that is not without reason.

The presumably human lady calls a short word back over her shoulder, and then follows it up with what looks like it's probably Magenta's name. She drags Magenta further forward, over the threshold into the house, Magenta stumbling along after her without resistance, probably dead on her feet just like Hartley is. It's only then, with Magenta accounted for and out of the way, that the woman notices Hartley.

He catalogues the obvious fear reaction, all the little things in her body language that tell him how scared of him she is, and feels the same fight or flight response start in him. It's just that his is paired up with a sizable amount of guilt and self loathing too. But wallowing never helped anyone, so Hartley lifts his lips and one hand to wave.

Magenta says a word Hartley can't read. Maybe the other woman's name? He narrows his eyes at her mouth when she continues, doing his best to peer around the crack in one lens of his glasses, managing to follow her brief explanation that 'he's with me' and 'he saved people'. She looks rushed, like she's trying to get this woman on her side before anyone else comes over. Hartley appreciates the effort, but he's tensed and ready to run all the same.

The woman doesn't take her eyes off of Hartley when she speaks to Magenta, so he sees it plain and clear when what she says is, 'I thought he was with Vibe.'

"Not anymore," Hartley says carefully, before Magenta can speak for him. There's a lot, that happened between him and Cisco that Hartley doesn't want to share for himself, much less suffer through some outsider's attempt to explain it. He works his jaw, blinking away the warmth in his eyes. (For a third thing, now is so not the time.)

Magenta's nonmeta friend opens her mouth to speak again, but before she can another woman appears at her shoulder, looking Magenta up and down in a much more perfunctory manner. She and the first woman look like they are related, maybe mother and daughter, but that's all Hartley has a chance to notice because not a moment later there is a gun in his face.

He could do something about it. He could make the gun fall apart before she could shoot probably. He could crack the porch landing underneath his feet and shake her footing, giving him a chance to escape or disarm her. He could kill her first.

Or he could do nothing.

Where would he go if he had to leave here? What will he do now?

Hartley barely notices Magenta grabbing the older woman's arm, trying to tug her gun away. He doesn't move. He just blinks to clear his vision. Blinks more when it blurs again. He barely notices the younger woman touching the elder's other shoulder, speaking to her. He stands still. He doesn't feel the porch under his feet, the breeze, or the sun. It's like this world isn't real anymore. Maybe he only imagined that Cisco let him go.

Hartley's surroundings move around him in a silent, blurry collage as Magenta and the younger woman both take him by one hand each and pull him over the threshold into the house. They push past the elder woman, who finally lowers her gun (though she doesn't look happy about it), and tug him along with them into a semi-crowded living room. There is a wide couch and an armchair and a mantle and it's very nice in here, and Hartley has no opinion on anything. He allows himself to be pushed down onto the couch, ignoring all the other people in the room with little effort. He stares past his knees at the carpet, the gently worn corner of the coffee table.

Eventually, someone else's legs come into Hartley's view. They sit on the coffee table in front of him, and softly touch his knee, heedless of his ostentatious costume - the marker of his loyalties. His old loyalties. The loyalties he doesn't have anymore. The loyalties he betrayed, and is left now without. He lifts his head with difficulty, and the pair of legs on the coffee table transform into a good looking older man with kind eyes, and then he slowly solidifies into the police chief whose name Hartley can't quite remember.

"Sign?" the police chief asks with his hands. Hartley nods, so he continues. "Is it okay if I treat your injuries for you?"

Injuries? Hartley hadn't realized he was injured. Whatever. He nods again. If it will make this nice man happy for a moment, that's fine. Somebody should be. The man in question reaches his arm out somewhere to the side and is handed a first aid kit, which he opens up on his lap. When he leans forward and gently takes Hartley's broken glasses off Hartley closes his eyes against fresh new tears.

"I loved him," Hartley signs, keeping his eyes shut tight, made bold by the disconnection from his surroundings. He flinches, but whether it's at the sting of alcohol in a cut across his cheek or at the admission he doesn't bother to know. "I didn't want to pick a side, but I had no choice." He can feel that his hands are shaking, hopes they're steady enough for his nurse to read. Warm fingers stick a bandaid over the bridge of Hartley's nose, brush it flat with a light touch. Then those hands close around Hartley's and squeeze.

"I understand," the police chief signs when Hartley opens his eyes again. And then, "My name is David." He brushes Hartley's hair, gritty with soot, off of his forehead. Wipes away the one tear that managed to escape with his thumb. Slides Hartley's glasses back on for him, careful not to catch the frames on Hartley's ears.

"You are Hartley Rathaway, right?" David signs, painstakingly spelling out Hartley's name. Hartley stares for a long few moments even after David's hands have stopped moving. It's been a long, long time since Hartley went by that name. He's been Pied Piper ever since Cisco woke up and became Vibe.

"Yes," he says, out loud. David smiles, his eyes lighting up just a little, and holds out his hand to shake.

…

Chief Singh patches up Hartley Rathaway while Iris sees to Magenta. Barry and Francine make tea. Francine's movements are jerky and too firm. Barry chews on his lip watching her, not sure if there's anything he could say that might help her. He understands where she's coming from; he's a little nervous to just accept Hartley no questions asked too, especially with everyone here. But on the other hand, Hartley seems so… Well. Barry doesn't know how to describe it, but Hartley doesn't seem like himself. Not any version of him that Barry has known, and not what he'd been told this version of him was like either. But he does know that Hartley and Cisco worked on the particle accelerator together to the finish in this timeline, and that they've lived together as Pied Piper and Vibe ever since the explosion. He knows he misses Cisco like a black hole in his life even though he has his parents back, his other friends, and somehow he doubts that he was as close to Cisco in the old timeline as Hartley was here. Not with the way Hartley seems so lost, just sitting still for Chief Singh to fuss over. Barry doesn't think that sort of thing can be faked.

But in the end, Barry doesn't figure out how to say any of that to Francine. Not to mention that she's probably not happy about taking on another meta on top of maybe thinking Hartley could be a spy. They pass out the tea.

"We need to debrief as soon as possible," Francine says sternly, leaving her own tea on the mantle and sitting down imperiously in Joe's armchair.

"Give them a moment," Iris argues quietly, her arm around Magenta's shoulders, Hartley on Magenta's other side. When Barry looks closer it looks like Magenta might have fallen asleep on her. Barry goes to them and sinks down on Iris's other side, taking her hand in his. Her fingers are cold. Before Francine can answer, there's a firm knock at the door.

"What, another one?" Francine snaps, but she still nods for someone to answer it. Cecile is the one to go, the only one other than Francine not occupied. She comes back into the room leading another brown skinned woman by the elbow. The newcomer is clutching her side, her breathing tightly controlled. She lands heavily on the couch next to Barry, and with her hands free now Cecile rushes to dig through the first aid kit in Singh's lap.

There is shallow silence in the room while Cecile helps the other woman pull up the shirt of her suit (looks like tripolymer, like Barry's), revealing a gash in her side. Cecile presses gauze to it and starts taping it up. The woman doesn't even wait for her to finish before she speaks, looking over to meet Francine's eyes like she can tell exactly who's in charge here.

"My name is Agent Cynthia Reynolds," she explains. "I'm from another Earth, hunting a fugitive, but I was apprehended by a group of meta criminals who have him under their protection."

"How did you find your way here," Francine asks blandly.

"I vibed these coordinates," Agent Reynolds says, and everyone tenses sharply, "as the location of a resistance. I just want to do my job and bring my target back to the right Earth. It seems in order to do that, I need to work with this unit."

There is another brief silence. In it, Cecile finishes dressing Agent Reynolds's wound and pulls away. Agent Reynolds tugs her top back down and then sits straight, as if there is nothing wrong with her at all. Across the room, the armchair creaks as Francine reaches over to the mantle to grab her tea.

"Well," she says with a grudging twist in her mouth. "Since it seems like we're recruiting today… Welcome aboard."

…

Vibe and his surviving men appear in a flash of blue back in the throne room at STAR Labs. They are all still prone, some still groaning in pain. At the moment, it's impossible for Vibe to tell whether it's all from Black Siren's scream or if there are also unrelated injuries they will all have to see to as well.

He doesn't have the time to ask anybody yet before the sound of Black Siren taking a deep breath has adrenaline shooting through him like a hot knife. Without thinking he lifts an arm at her and vibes her away before she can scream again and maybe kill them all this time.

The silence when she's gone is heavy, and Vibe knows without a doubt that she'll come back to bite him at some point. But he can't bring himself to care. Not past the rage (the hurt). She's and Plastique are not the only people Vibe lost today.

And right when he was winning, too.

Vibe pulls himself into standing and then collapses into his throne, not bothering to check himself over any more than the rest of them for now. He chews hatefully on his tongue for a moment, and then changes his mind and gets up again. At the lone table, Vibe physically picks up the one disconnected computer left and slams it down again. When it doesn't break he does it again, and again, and again, and when it's in pieces he takes the biggest one and beats the table with it. He's distantly aware that he's howling as he does it, too much inside of him to contain and no way else for it to be let out with only allies around anymore.

At least as far as Vibe knows. Maybe there are more traitors here, just waiting to betray him like Hart- like Pied Piper did.

Vibe should have known better than to get all emotionally attached. Sure, the old Cisco and Hartley were friends before, but that shouldn't have made a difference. Clearly it didn't to Hartley.

Vibe should have known better. The only thing you can trust is power. The only thing without double meanings, without feelings and morality and a mind to change. And no one knows power like Vibe does. No one can understand him, because no one can reach his level.

No one except maybe Charmer. Charmer, who Vibe declared this whole battle over in the first place, so that he could see her again. So that he could fight her. So that he could have an equal for once. Charmer, who wasn't even there!

It doesn't matter. None of it matters. Vibe will forget all about Hartley, and he'll find Charmer and woo her over to the side of lawlessness - of freedom, of the kind of power that only they two can know. He'll have everything he wants. No more nonsense. No more pit stops.

No more mercy.

 

* * *

 

**_Next Week on The Flash:_ **

_Episode 3.08 "Denial"_

_Eobard Thawne stands in his yellow suit, looming over Barry. "Time waves," he says. "They put everything just a little bit off."_

_"In the old timeline I was known as The Flash," Barry confesses to Francine._

_Agent Reynolds furiously storms out of the West house, slamming the heavy door behind her._

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr, currently @forthenovel for #nanowrimo, but normally [@fortheglare](https://fortheglare.tumblr.com/)


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